... modern pluralist democracy. This choice should be recognized as politically correct and practically faultless. The world is focused on the Middle East. Tunisia stands out against that nightmarish background as a bright spot and the only country where the Arab Spring was relatively successful. (Many will say that the night is still young, but then it’s all the more imperative to make haste and encourage this positive trend.) Civil society is always a less controversial candidate than any politician,...
In the wake of Turkey’s downing of a Russian military jet that violated its airspace and Russia’s resulting casualties, tensions are certainly on the rise. Despite the fact that these tensions should not be overblown, important questions about Putin’s aims need to be addressed. Yet in the end, the saddest thing is how avoidable this incident was and how easy it would be to improve this situation dramatically.
By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981), originally...
... organizations together form a disparate and splintered but significant proportion of the key forces in the conflict. Regional and Western powers have contributed to this process as well. On the other hand, the developments in Syria that followed the Arab Spring had their own domestic roots. In order to achieve a successful resolution of the Syrian crisis we not only need the destruction of radical underground forces but also a keen insight into its social and political roots.
The Syrian state
The ...
By intervening squarely on the side of Shiite Bashar Assad against his own mainly Sunni people and the entire Sunni Middle East, Russia may once again be the center of attention from the global Sunni jihadist movement. But, unlike the 1980s in Afghanistan, these mujahadeen are much more experienced, much more sophisticated, much more capable, have a larger radicalized population from which to draw, and are able to strike anywhere, including Russia itself.
By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook...
... in Syria of many of the country’s own people who wanted Syria’s President (dictator) Bashar al-Assad to step down so they could change the system and have more freedom. They were inspired by their Arab brethren in the happier days of the Arab Spring in 2011. This was, generally, a struggle for freedom, representation, human rights, and democracy in a country ruled by an authoritarian, repressive, undemocratic Syrian regime with an Alawite (a word describing a subsect of Shia Islam that ...
... America and Asia. Morocco tried to make this problem an international one but none of the major international actors sided with Morocco. The AU, the EU and the UN do not recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.
What are the implications of the Arab Spring for Western Sahara?
Joseph E. Fallon:
The Arab Spring: Expectations and Reality
Professor Chomsky repeatedly stated that the Arab Spring started in Western Sahara. In late 2010 citizens of Western Sahara organized huge demonstrations by building ...
If white Americans and Israeli Jews want African-Americans and Palestinians to cease with the ruckus, they must make their own societies and governments cease systematically bringing the ruckus to these darker-skinned neighbors of theirs.
By Brian E. Frydenborg, originally published January 7th, 2015
If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to me! Please feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you...
... please do not hesitate to reach out to me! Please feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow me there at @bfry1981)
2014 has certainly been a year of change. While an ostensible explanation for this would be the Arab Spring, in a larger sense, America is like a developmentally disabled child who has struggled to take in information and use it to adjust to what is happening who finally, though quite belatedly, is beginning to see the obvious need to modify his ...
... the oil-rich Gulf states, primarily
Saudi Arabia
. Thanks to their enormous financial resources, these countries have outpaced others in the international arena and shaped the loyalty of other Arab states according to their political priorities.
The Arab Spring: League Sheds its Outcasts
Photo: AFP/Khaled Desouki
Qatari Premier and Foreign Minister Sheikh
Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr al-Thani speaks to
Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arab
The 1990s and 2000s were years of changes to the internal ...
Possible Future of The Arab Spring
During the Cold War, conflicts in the Middle East tended to be localized. Despite the Arab-Israeli Wars and inter-Arab rivalries, the region as a whole, from Morocco to Iran, remained relatively stable. This changed on December 17, 2010 ...