Tunisia Sees Sharp Rise in Drug Use Following Revolution - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/culture/2013/02/drug-use-increase-tunisia.html
Tunisia Sees Sharp Rise in Drug Use Following Revolution
Fume, c’est de l’Afghan !
Lire absolument l’analyse de Jean Aziz sur la guerre ouverte des mouvements jihadistes (sunnites) contre l’armée libanaise : Syrian Jihadist Groups Take Conflict To Lebanon
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/02/sunni-awakening-lebanon.html
On Friday, Feb. 1, the Lebanese army lost two soldiers, a sergeant and a captain, who were part of a strike force unit that belonged to Lebanese Army Intelligence. The two soldiers died during a clash between the army unit and armed Sunni fundamentalists in Arsal, which is near the Syrian border in the Bekaa Valley. That incident has many political and security dimensions and it confirms, as Al-Monitor has been reporting, that Jabhat al-Nusra is now in Lebanon and that the group’s activities are about to become public.
Israeli Textbooks Under Scrutiny - Al-Monitor : the Pulse of the Middle East
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/tr/contents/articles/opinion/2013/01/israeli-and-palestinian-textbooks.html
The study reveals that though Israeli textbooks don’t contain explicit incitement, they are guilty of marginalizing the other side.
Une étude, financée par les USA, critique les manuels scolaires israéliens. Dommage pour Netanyahou qui aime tellement répéter que ceux des Palestiniens incitent à la haine contre les Israéliens.
Cultural War Over Direction Of Saudi Media - Al-Monitor : the Pulse of the Middle East
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/culture/2013/01/saudi-conservatives-media-struggle.html
Traduit du Safir, cet article qui rappelle le débat, appelé à s’intensifier en particulier sur la question des médias et de l’image en général, entre deux courants représentatifs de la société saoudienne, les Wabbabites jusqu’au-boutistes, et les « libéraux » commeon les appelle là-bas. On peut faire le pari que, tôt ou tard, ce sont les seconds qui finiront pas l’emporter.
The war in Saudi Arabia is divided between two opinions: conservativism to the extent of extremism, and openness to the extent of liberalism, even if masked with religious convictions. Preachers sometimes issue edicts to announce the sinfulness of watching networks that are financed by rich Saudis and that feature many prominent Saudi figures and discuss subjects pertaining solely to the affairs of the kingdom. These channels are considered to represent the Saudis who pray, fast, sing, dance, are concerned with fashion and who are interested in discussing religion without being swamped in extremism and terrorism. Saudis are thus portrayed as individuals who have fun, do not mind watching Turkish and Lebanese shows, or being informed about the social issues of the Gulf. As for politics, the government allows the dissemination of the information it wants public.
Turkey’s Syrian Dilemma - Al-Monitor : the Pulse of the Middle East
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/01/erdogan-davutoglu-syria-policy-mali-intervention.html
La Turquie d’Erdogan et la France de Fabius pas vraiment sur la même longueur d’onde vis-à-vis de la Syrie. Un regard sur la diplomatie turque, pas vraiment beaucoup répercuté dans les médias.
The irony here is that Turkey and France are actually on the same page as to what should happen in Syria. Both see no role for Bashar al-Assad in any settlement formula. Both are calling for increased international support for the Syrian opposition to topple Assad and his regime.
This, however, has not increased cooperation between Ankara and Paris, as might have been expected. Rather than cooperate, Turkey and France, whose ties are already strained over issues like Ankara’s EU membership bid and the Armenian genocide, have from the start of the Arab Spring been competing for influence in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Salafists Vow to Fight Until There Is ’Islamic State in Syria’
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/01/fighter-syria-aleppo-turkey.html
“Most of the fighters just fight because Assad is evil, but they don’t know anything about this guy or the opposition outside. They just believe Assad needs to go.” He then stressed, “We will fight until we establish an Islamic state in Syria. Even the 75% of the Free Syrian Army is fighting with this in mind. We don’t want it as strict as Saudi Arabia, but we will not let go until we achieve our goal.”
UAE Political Islamists Are Not ’Human Rights Defenders’
►http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/uae-islamists.html
For almost two years, the UAE’s political Islamists have been referred to in the West as human rights activists. No doubt, they are indeed activists with an agenda but there is also no doubt that they are not our version of Nelson Mandela, nor is their vision for the country that of the Magna Carta. I have been following their rhetoric — in Arabic — over the past few months on social media with great concern. I have found it to be xenophobic; anti-Semitic; sectarian; exclusionary; racist toward Asians, Africans and other Arabs and overall repugnant.
New Book Portends Crisis, Possible Revolt in Saudi Arabia
►http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/new-book-suggests-next-mideast-r.html
Sixty percent of Saudis are 20 or younger, most of whom have no hope of a job. Seventy percent of Saudis can not afford to own a home. Forty percent live below the poverty line.
The royals, 25,000 princes and princesses, own most of the valuable land and benefit from a system that gives each a stipend and some a fortune. Foreign workers make the Kingdom work; the 19 million Saudi citizens share the Kingdom with 8.5 million guest workers.
Other fault lines are getting deeper and more explosive. According to House, regional differences and even “regional racism” between parts of the country are “a daily fact of Saudi life.” Hejazis in the West and Shiites in the East resent the strict Wahhabi lifestyle imposed by the Quran belt in the Nejd central desert. Gender discrimination, essential to the Wahhabi world view, is a growing problem as more and more women become well educated with no prospect of a job. Sixty percent of Saudi college graduates are women but they are only twelve percent of the work force. You can hear some of their angry voices in this book.
Since the start of the revolutions in the Arab world in early 2011 the most important question has been will they spread to the Kingdom? The stakes are huge, since one in four barrels of oil sold in the world are Saudi produced.
[…]
Yet the kingdom is also a source of anxiety. European intelligence sources say the kingdom’s rich are still the No. 1 source of finances for extremist Islamic groups including the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan’s Lashkar-e Tayyiba. And the kingdom has all but annexed its small neighbor Bahrain to squash a democratic revolution on the island that hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
Syrian Influx Unnerves Turks in Border Towns
►http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/syrian-influx-unnerves-turks-in.html
At the heart of the Turkish Alevi community’s concern is accusatory rhetoric by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggesting that members of their faith are somehow responsible for the bloodshed in Syria.
“Can you believe what he says to Kilicdaroglu? Is it normal to provoke people against a person based on his faith?” said Hasip Yigitoglu, a businessman who owned a factory producing industrial lubricants in Aleppo until the crisis started over a year ago. He was referring to Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of CHP, who has criticized the ruling AKP’s Syria policy and urged the government to refrain from making Turkey a direct party in the conflict.
Erdogan claimed that Kilicdaroglu is supporting Assad because the Turkish politician is an Alevi.
“The prime minister is trying to create a Sunni bloc with such rhetoric,” Yigitoglu told Al-Monitor.
Questions mesurées et intéressantes de Elias Muhanna (auteur du blog Qifa Nabki) : Three Reasons Why Syria’s Man in Lebanon Was Arrested
►http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/lebanese-minister-michel-samaha.html
The likelihood that a figure with Samaha’s profile (and connections) could be unceremoniously tossed in the back of paddy wagon without a shred of evidence is very slim. Leaks suggest that the Internal Security Forces (ISF), had gathered substantial evidence of Samaha’s involvement in the alleged plot including telecoms, video and audio surveillance, and witness testimony. If the evidence is thin, there are going to be major consequences.
On the other hand, there is something implausible about the story. Even if one were to assume that the alleged plot existed and that Samaha had knowledge of it, it seems highly unlikely that he would have been involved on an operational level.
Qifa Nabki commence à aborder les répercussions sur la Résistance (sous l’angle politicien de la survie du gouvernement Mikati, alors que ça risque d’être infiniment plus grave au niveau de la légitimité du Hezbollah lui-même) :
With the arrest of Samaha, Prime Minister Mikati has significantly gone out on a limb. If Hezbollah decides to demand Samaha’s release on pain of the government’s collapse, Mikati will have few cards to play. On the one hand, he will find it politically impossible to go against the ISF, given that Samaha is being accused of involvement in a plot to sow strife in Sunni areas. Mikati, who has long been painted by the Future Movement (Lebanon’s main Sunni party, currently sitting in opposition) as a fig leaf for Syria and Iran’s allies, is eager to maintain his bonafides as a leader in the Sunni community. Being seen as kowtowing to Hezbollah would be political suicide for Mikati less than a year before the next parliamentary elections.
The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran
►http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/the-secret-history-of-americas-t.html
In Bush’s second term, Cheney’s daughter, Elizabeth, a deputy assistant secretary of State, lectured US Foreign Service officers “including those fluent in Farsi” about “the nature of Iranian society and its government” even though she “had no background on Iran,” Crist writes. The lectures were delivered to the “Iran-Syria Working Group, an interagency body co-chaired by Cheney and Elliott Abrams, a neoconservative in the Bush White House.
(via @angryarab)
The Soft Approach Toward #Syria Won’t Work
The demise of the Annan plan for Syria is quickly giving rise to yet another dubious gambit: that the way to bring president Bashar al-Assad down is to get the Russians to walk away from him. It’s certainly worth a try. But in the end, if the United States wants the regime out, it will have to find a way to pressure it with force.
So far, the Arab spring/winter has offered up three ways to get rid of Arab autocrats. First, the Egyptian model in which sustained public pressure in the streets forced Mubarak from power. It worked because the military, seeking to preserve its own credibility and influence, refused to confront the Egyptian people.
To read more ►http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/demise-of-annan-plan-in-syria.html