The United States's military preparations, and Israel's growing involvement, reveal the momentum to a dangerous escalation in the middle east.
American liberal arts colleges are embracing collaborations with authoritarian regimes worldwide, with implications for US foreign policy. Following up his op-ed in the New York Times on Sunday, Jim Sleeper reports on the issue in greater depth in this openDemocracy essay.
Genocide is both taking on new forms in the era of democratic revolution and exposing the defective reactions of western states, says Martin Shaw.
The momentum in the United States is shifting towards a larger-scale attack on the Assad regime. But even a limited one will transform the nature of the war, with region-wide consequences.
The probability that the United States will make a single military reponse to the chemical-weapons assault near Damascus is very high.
Al-Qaida has twice returned from presumed defeat. Now, the fate of the Arab awakening provides it with a third opportunity.
The revelation that modern Turkey continues secretly to classify its citizens according to religious criteria reflects the weight of the Ottoman past. It also has implications for those in the middle east seeking a state based on equality before law, says Vicken Cheterian.
Syria's internal stalemate and the wider regional standoff make a political settlement ever more remote. But the military trends are going the jihadist paramilitaries' way.
The military's deposition of Egypt's elected president has been welcomed by the Muslim Brotherhood's liberal opponents. This is a historic error that carries big costs and risks, says Khaled Hroub.
The mistakes of the Muslim Brotherhood in monopolising the constitution drafting process and decision making processes precipitated the intervention of the military. The task now is to prevent further polarisation and the threat of violent conflict.
The situation in Egypt today rekindles the debate about middle class military coups in the 1960s and 1970s. Lessons must be learned from Latin America's experience of moving the military into the government.
Together, distorted understanding and flawed policy have compounded the problems of weak states in the global south. A different approach to state-building is needed, says Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou
