The Middle East

Topic

From Commonweal

Clash of Cultures

William Pfaff

In the riots that swept Islamic society last winter, reaction to the publication of cartoons insulting the Prophet Mohammed, the world glimpsed evidence of a clash between cultures—but not in the sense of the “clash of civilizations” that Samuel...
Don’t Look Away

Barbara Mujica

With chilling matter-of-factness, Joshua Tuohy describes the explosion that took his right leg and killed three of his buddies.
Divided They Stand

Joseph D. Becker
More War?

The Editors

The United States has been at war for more than a decade. Thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Afghans, and others have been killed. Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians have been maimed or crippled.
Gandhi on the Nile

David Cortright

The democratic uprising that brought down the Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt stands as one of the most dramatic expressions of “people power” in history. The people’s victory in Egypt was preceded by the downfall of the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia and...
Still Counting

Ronald Osborn

The October online posting by WikiLeaks of nearly a thousand classified Pentagon documents (the “Iraq War Logs”) shed new light on the vexed issue of Iraqi deaths during and after the 2003 invasion.
A War for Oil

Jay Mandle

I am deeply suspicious of economically determinist or conspiratorial explanations for political and historical events. The world is just too complicated, and chance and history play too large a role in the choices we face and the decisions we make....
An American in Egypt

Jay Parini

From my student days, almost forty years ago, when I hitchhiked with a backpack on my shoulders and a guitar at my side, I’ve been an eager traveler in the Middle East, fascinated by the rich historical resonance and complex politics of this region.
The Persian Version

Christopher Thornton

Ask most people in the West what images they associate with the words “Middle East” and you’ll likely get descriptions of oil wells, desert dunes, and men in flowing robes and Bedouin headgear. More recently, you might hear of crowds filling public...