The Washington Post just ran this thought-provoking piece on the Arab Spring by former Soviet dissident refusenik and Israeli Parliamentarian Natan Sharansky. As I wrote last spring, Recent upheavals across the mideast from Egypt to Tunisia to Syria can be viewed through the prism of Sharansky’s ideas on democracy and …
Last Sunday the Arab League imposed a battery of sanctions against the Syrian regime. Two weeks ago, the Arab League suspended Syria from its ranks—the first such suspension of a member nation since the League suspended Egypt after Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
Viewed by …
Mithal al-Alusi, human rights leader and former Iraqi Parliamentarian, contacted me last weekend to convey his thoughts about the dire situation for proponents of human rights and liberal values in Iraq. He also urged President Obama to “do something about Iran.”
Alusi was elected to Parliament in 2005 following the murder of …
Recently I interviewed a Syrian-American acquaintance, a restaurateur in his mid-thirties, Ahmad (name has been changed for security reasons) about what it was like to grow up in Syria (he immigrated to the U.S. as a young adult) under the regime of Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez Assad. I also spoke with him about the unfolding …