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Monday, August 26, 2013

Syria's Chemicals, America's Red Line and A Looming Intervention


Russia called it “hysteria” over chemical use but the United States calls it its “red line.” A military intervention should not come as a surprise to anyone; certainly not to Russia that had been called on repeatedly to help find an exit out of Syria’s impasse to no avail. The fact that the U.S., Britain -- and soon more NATO countries -- are stepping up their military and naval presence around Syria should be read as a last warning in a series of diplomatic messages and intervention warnings that went unanswered before.

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Monday, August 19, 2013

Military or Fundamentalism? Egypt Between A Rock and A Hard Place

Editor's Note:  If you believe that Muslim fundamentalism and its ensuing terrorism pose serious threats to the world, you will begin to have more answers about what is happening in Egypt than questions and frustrations.

Cairo, home of Islam’s most renowned mosque and authoritative university, Al-Azhar, is also home to the Muslim Brotherhood which gave the world the chief al-Qaeda man Ayman al-Zawahiri and his likes. The same Muslim Brotherhood that was outlawed because of its fundamentalist ideology, bloody history and murderous plots against any individual or entire people who didn’t fit its doctrine. That same Brotherhood came to power democratically last year (only because of years of organized underground activism and a sizeable number of followers who do exactly as they’re told).

We owe it to Egypt not to see things as only black and white, good and bad or life and death. What makes us unique is our diversity and the critical mind that makes us skeptics, able to doubt and reviewing our position, maybe even change our mind and accept that “the other” might be right while we're wrong in finding our way to the truth.

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The new Egypt did not repress the Brotherhood, quite the contrary, in the spirit of newfound freedom and inclusivity, Egypt embraced them and gave them a chance to prove how worthy they are of ruling a country and representing a nation as large, as diverse and as excited about its fresh revolution as Egypt was after toppling Hosni Mubarak.

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Monday, August 12, 2013

Lebanon’s Ever Looming War



It might not be an all-out war like the one the Lebanese have lived between 1975 and 1990. It might be a political explosion at the national level twenty three years in the making; pitting one coalition against another, or sect against sect until members of the same family fight each other again from opposing aisles or militarized fronts.

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Monday, August 5, 2013

Breathing Alpine Hope Into The Middle East



Nestled between the Alps and Leman Lake is an old castle turned conference center in the village of Caux in Southwest Switzerland. It turns into a warm welcoming home to many of us for a few days every summer.

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