Articles inside the category: The Big Idea
on :
Tuesday, 19 Jul, 2011
When hearing the words “regime change”, one would most likely think of the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003, or more generally of foreign armies trying to topple a given leader, probably a tyrant, through violent means. On the end of the spectrum of the least likely ideas that one would relate with the almost inevitable violent nature of regime change is free, fair, democratically held-elections. If the idea of elections has anything to do with regime change, that is probably after th...
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Wednesday, 15 Jun, 2011
The testimonies of the Syrian army's advance northwards during the weekend resemble a chronic of the Vikings sweeping through their enemies territories ten centuries ago - pillage, burned crops, slaughtered livestock.
In the Middle Ages, this was an intentional tactic to weaken ones foes, by denying the enemy shelter, transportation, and food. Yet while the Vikings display of mercilessness was seen as a sign of strength, in Syria's case the regime's violent practices are essentially a sig...
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Tuesday, 7 Jun, 2011
Everything seems to indicate that this is it, Ali Abdullah Saleh is gone to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment, and he is not coming back to Sana’a. Yet, although Saleh’s p...
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Wednesday, 4 May, 2011
Increasingly today, beyond the checkpoints and barbed wired fences, national borders are little more than imaginary lines, vulnerable to traveling ideas and images, over which ...
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Thursday, 21 Apr, 2011
In Libya the civil war continues to take its toll, particularly among the civilian opposition. In Syria, and despite President Bashar’s declarations that the emergency laws (...
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Wednesday, 6 Apr, 2011
“You should not listen to Bin Laden and his followers,” said Qadhafi in a phone call addressed to residents of the Libyan town of Al-Zawiya. Playing the Islamist card—an ...
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Monday, 21 Mar, 2011
The idea that the current popular uprising in the Middle East is driving the Arab world towards its own End of History is gaining a few followers.
Was Francis Fukuyama right...
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Tuesday, 8 Mar, 2011
In the summer of 1993, when Samuel P. Huntington published his essay the “Clash of Civilizations?” in Foreign Affairs magazine, few including Huntington himself would expec...
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