Posted in Democracy on Feb 9th, 2009 Comments Off on Middle East seen from Freedom House
From MESH Admin Freedom House has just released its Freedom in the World survey for 2009, rating the level of political rights and civil liberties worldwide. Freedom House divides countries into three categories: free, partly free, and not free. In its “Map of Freedom” (download here), free countries are shown in green; partly free in […]
Posted in Iraq, J. Scott Carpenter, Mark T. Kimmitt, Military on Feb 3rd, 2009 2 Comments »
From Mark T. Kimmitt Following on Scott Carpenter’s excellent post on the state of the Iraqi elections, it is also worthwhile to consider the security situation in Iraq. A year ago, I asked if 2008 would be the year when the gains in security are met by gains in stability, or will the tremendous tactical […]
Posted in Geopolitics, Hamas, Israel, Michael Reynolds, Turkey on Feb 2nd, 2009 1 Comment »
From Michael Reynolds Origins of cooperation. For the past two decades, cooperative relations between Turkey and Israel had been one of the constants of international relations in the Middle East. While it would be incorrect to describe those ties as equivalent to an alliance, they were close and multi-faceted. Turkey recognized Israel in 1949, the […]
Posted in Democracy, Iraq, J. Scott Carpenter on Feb 1st, 2009 Comments Off on Iraqi elections checklist
From J. Scott Carpenter Iraq’s provincial elections took place yesterday without much fanfare and, thankfully, not much violence either. According to news reports, the complexity of the system, the size of the ballot and voter apathy drove voter turnout down. Still, these historic elections, in which 7.5 million Iraqis participated, will set the tone for […]
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