Nikahang Kowsar on the Supreme Leader, President Obama, and US-led Sanctions
As the country that gave the world chess, it is only appropriate that Iran's current sanctions standoff with the United States resembles a game between two inept players. Tehran repeatedly makes bad moves; Washington plays better but has no path to checkmate.
After all these years, there's still this one thing that I can't quite understand. How could the same people who put the first man on the moon -- people who are so intelligent, so good at politics, so important in international affairs -- have made the mistake of invading Iraq? I can imagine two third-world countries deciding to go to war with each other and failing to plan ahead. But the Americans? Americans are good at business, aren't they? Normally, people in business would do a feasibility study. You'd think that you'd do that too before invading an entire country. You should make sure you have the right tools, alternative courses of action, back-up plans. But that didn't happen. There was no plan at all, as far as we could see. They should have been able to see, in a country with so many sectarian and ethnic divides, what would happen. But they didn't. They didn't understand anything.
An illustration of General Hassan Firouzabadi, head of Iran's armed forces, blocking the Straits of Hormuz
Iranian military exercises apparently emphasize three weapons in the strait: small suicide boats, mobile antiship cruise missiles, and sophisticated sea mines. Using these tools, how hard would it be for Iran to disrupt the flow of oil?
The answer turns out to be: very hard. Iran would have to disable many of the 20 tankers that traverse the strait each day -- and then sustain the effort. Iran cannot rely on the psychological effects of a few hits. Historically, after a short panic, commercial shippers adapt rather than give up lucrative trips, even against much more effective blockades than Iran could muster today.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 7:52 | James Miller in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran
I don't need to sugar coat this: there are a lot of people who have no faith in the Arab League mission in Syria. For starters, we already know what they will find. International observers, though limited in both numbers and opportunities to investigate independently, have given us conclusions. According to US Ambassador Robert Ford, or the UN delegation that visited in August, or the few reporters brave enough to smuggle themselves into Syria, President Assad is killing a lot of people and torturing many. And there is only one way to end this mess, with Assad giving up power.
Few of these facts are in question. Much of the counter-narrative provided by the Syrian regime has either been proven false or is a weak defense --- "some individuals are guilty of crimes" --- for the scale of the regime's carnage. If only half the claims of the activists are true, then the number of people who have died from violence in Syria this year is four times greater than in Egypt.
So why are there observers present, who are they, what will they see, and what will they do about it? Let's work backwards.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 8:41 | Josh Shahryar in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
There used to be a saying, "History is written by the victors." That does not hold anymore. Though Bahrain's protest movement may have been suppressed, history is not going to remember this as the a valiant defence by Bahrain's regime against a violent minority, aided by malevolent foreign powers. This will be remembered as an apartheid regime crushing a democracy movement, assisted by its biggest foreign ally still portraying itself as a beacon of liberty and justice.
The White House appears unaware of this re-writing of history. That failure will not just land it on the wrong side of history. It will also put it, on a daily side, on the wrong side of those who observe and wonder for what "America" really stands.
The world awoke to a new front in the Arab Spring as thousands of protestors fought through guards to occupy Kuwait's Parliament on Wednesday night. Chanting "this is our house" and "the people want the removal of the Prime Minister" the youthful crowd, accompanied by opposition parliamentarians, certainly looked the part of Arab revolutionaries. Yet Kuwait has been working toward this climax since before Tunisians took to the streets of Sidi Bouzeid. And while drawing momentum from Arab brethren in Egypt and elsewhere, Kuwait activists are not seeking regime overthrow but rather something even more rare -- a genuine constitutional monarchy in the Gulf.
Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 8:23 | Scott Lucas in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
Stephen Starr writes for Foreign Policy magazine:
Syrian business leaders, with much to lose and deeply fearful of the regime's security apparatus, are unlikely to join the country's ongoing revolt anytime soon. Even the businessmen interviewed for this article blanched upon seeing their remarks about the dismal state of the Syrian economy in print, quickly requesting anonymity to express themselves freely. The government's rose-tinted pronouncements about the condition of Syrian finances aside, there is no doubt that the country's economy is in dire straits.
The official line is that Syria's economy is fine. In an August interview, Central Bank Governor Adib Mayaleh said that foreign reserves remain strong at about $18 billion -- the same figure he was quoting earlier in the summer. President Bashar al-Assad has been somewhat more honest, arguing in June that "the most dangerous thing we face in the next stage is the weakness or collapse of the Syrian economy".
But the facts on the ground are irrefutable. The International Monetary Fund projected in September that Syria's economy will shrink by about 2% this year. Tourism, worth about 12% of GDP, has ceased completely. Employees in the huge and overburdened state sector have been asked by the authorities to "donate" 500 Syrian pounds (about $10) from their monthly salaries to help boost state funds. Deposits in Syria's private banks declined as much as 18% in third quarter of this year, according to figures released by the Damascus Securities Exchange, despite high interest rates meant to shore up bank coffers.
Thursday, November 10, 2011 at 13:47 | Scott Lucas in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
Supermarket on Fire During Oman Protests, February 2011Oman held parliamentary elections on October 15 -- two weeks before the Tunisian elections that captured the world's attention. But nobody paid them much mind. And why should they? There is not much more to be said beyond the high "participation" rate (76 percent of those who bothered to register), the solitude that the one elected woman may feel among her 83 male colleagues, or the election of three protesters. Tribal alliances still drove results in a country where political parties are not allowed and where, for most seats, 1,500 votes is enough to get elected.
But this might be deceiving. This has been Oman's least quiet year in a generation.
It all began on a pleasant motorcycle trip I took last month from Beirut, Lebanon, to Tartous, Syria, that ended up becoming a semi-surreptitious probe of Hama and Homs, the twin flashpoints of the Syrian uprising. As an English professor at the American University of Beirut, armed only with a rare visa obtained over the summer at the Syrian Consulate in Houston, Texas, and a modicum of Arabic, I managed to pass muster at a series of military checkpoints and gain entry into these two besieged cities.
Once inside, I was able to meet and talk with protesters and see first-hand evidence of President Bashar al-Assad's violent crackdown on the demonstrations that have been rocking the country since March. More than 3,000 people are believed to have been killed over the last seven months, most of them peaceful protesters, according to international rights groups and Syrian activists.
This is the story of what I saw.
On Wednesday, during a talk by Bahraini activist Maryam Al Khawaja, I ventured the comment that the "success" of the Bahraini regime's propaganda effort would not come through social media, where its supporters' efforts have become a source of annoyance at "trolling" or of comedy. Nor was Bahrain's monarchy getting much value of the US and British PR firms who, for quite expensive contracts, were trying to dress up State press releases as "news" and putting out clumsy opinion pieces on The Huffington Post.
Instead, I suggested, the "success" would come through mainstream Washington journalists. Sometimes this is through the re-cycling of the regime's claims, citing unnamed sources --- see the recent effort by David Ignatius of The Washington Post. Sometimes, it is the attempt by a regime official to use an article as a podium for the right line.
Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy magazine gives us an example of the latter with his "Bahrain Foreign Minister on DC Charm Offensive"....
