Egypt was wracked by protests today, the day after President Mohamed Morsi purged key judicial officials and issued a decree that granted himself sweeping new powers. In Cairo, protesters gathered in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of Egypt’s stalled revolution, to denounce Morsi’s power grab and chant: “Morsi is Mubarak.” There …
Over the last four days, militants in Gaza have fired more than 840 rockets at Israel. Hamas rockets have reached the outskirts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for the first time, thanks to the smuggling of Iranian rockets into Gaza. The increasing range and sophistication of Palestinian rockets has expanded the …
After several days of rocket salvos launched at Israeli civilians, Israel responded yesterday with air strikes that killed the leader of the Hamas terrorist wing and targeted rocket launching, storage, and manufacturing sites in the Gaza Strip. The air campaign began with a precision air strike that killed Ahmed Al-Jabaari, …
Three Arab kingdoms in the Persian Gulf region have been confronted with the destabilizing fallout of growing political tensions in recent days. On Monday, a series of bombings in Bahrain’s capital of Manama killed two men, an ominous sign that the struggle between the island nation’s predominantly Sunni ruling elite …
In Monday’s foreign policy debate, Governor Mitt Romney briefly mentioned the importance of economic reform in addressing some of the problems associated with the eruption of the “Arab Spring” uprisings. The Heritage Foundation’s 2012 Index of Economic Freedom confirmed that the lack of economic freedom was a major factor that …
Lebanon has been roiled by mounting political tensions in the wake of another assassination of a Lebanese leader that is widely blamed on the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Last Friday, a car bomb killed the intelligence chief of Lebanon’s internal security forces, Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan, who was a …
The Middle East played a prominent part in the debate between Vice President Biden and Representative Paul Ryan, with sharp exchanges over issues related to Libya, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Ryan energetically lambasted the Obama Administration’s policies as naive and ineffective, while Biden maintained that Ryan proposed few clear alternatives. …
The Obama Administration’s continually evolving narrative about the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, prompted the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to conduct a hearing today on the adequacy of security arrangements. Representative Darrell Issa (R–CA), chairman of the committee, bridled at the State Department’s …