Middle East Politics

The drama that shaped today’s Iran, from the Revolution to the present day. In 1979, seemingly overnight - moving at a clip some 30 years faster than the rest of the world - Iran became the first revolutionary theocracy in modern times. Since then, the country has been largely a black box to the West, a sinister presence looming over the horizon. But inside Iran, a breathtaking drama has unfolded since then, as religious thinkers, political operatives, poets, journalists, and activists have imagined and reimagined what Iran should be.

'Engrossing . . . has the vice-like grip of a thriller' - The Telegraph 'Fascinating, timely and sharp' - Simon Sebag Montefiore In Assad: The Triumph of Tyranny, Con Coughlin, veteran commentator on war in the Middle East and author of Saddam: The Secret Life, examines how a mild-mannered...

In Israel and Palestine, religious and political tensions are boiling, threatening to explode an untenable status quo. A renowned baker and his son are at odds, one turning his back on Allah, the other determined to prove himself worthy of God’s love. A rich playboy shatters his life in the States and joins Israel’s special forces searching for purpose and meaning. An Israeli vixen with a tragic past and a penchant for violence finds herself torn between her work for the Russian mob and the people she loves.

Aujourd’hui, le monde est confronté au conflit Israélo-Palestinien. Comme beaucoup d’entre nous, ce conflit m’habite depuis mon plus jeune âge, et en vous écrivant, je me revois feuilleter mon premier journal, lire l’article sur le sujet et dans mon lit penser aux solutions.

The Arab Spring promised to end dictatorship and bring self-government to people across the Middle East. Yet everywhere except Tunisia it led to either renewed dictatorship, civil war, extremist terror, or all three. In The Arab Winter, Noah Feldman argues that the Arab Spring was nevertheless not an unmitigated failure, much less an inevitable one. Rather, it was a noble, tragic series of events in which, for the first time in recent Middle Eastern history, Arabic-speaking peoples took free, collective political action as they sought to achieve self-determination.

Medea Benjamin researches the sinister nature of the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia. In seven succinct chapters followed by a meditation on prospects for change, Benjamin shines a light on one of the most perplexing elements of American foreign policy. Why, over a period of decades and across various presidential administrations, has the US consistently supported a regime shown time and again to be one of the most powerful forces working against American interests?

After 9/11, the Ayn Rand Institute predicted that the prevailing ideas about morality would undercut our foreign policy and cripple us in action. In the op-eds, essays, blog posts, and interviews featured in this audiobook, you will hear that those predictions have proved correct. Can we end the Islamist menace and secure our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness on earth? Yes - easily - if we adopt the right philosophic ideas to guide our foreign policy.

Bigger than Watergate! Bigger than Iran-Contra! Ten times bigger than both, said one representative. The Bengahzi scandal may have been covered up by the White House, but the truth is about to come out. The Real Benghazi Story is a groundbreaking investigative work that finally exposes some of the most significant issues related to the murderous September 11, 2012, attack - information with current national security implications.

The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon left us stunned, angry, and uncomprehending. As it became clear that these horrifying acts had been committed in the name of religion, the media, the government, and ordinary citizens alike sought answers to questions about Islam and its adherents.

For more than a decade, French journalist Nicolas Hénin has reported from the front lines of conflict in the Middle East, much of his time spent in Iraq and Syria. He witnessed the events leading to the rise of Islamic State, and, in June 2013, he was captured by IS and spent 10 months in captivity with James Foley and others who were beheaded soon after Hénin was released.

The first fundamental truth about the "Arab Spring" is that there never was one. The salient fact of the Middle East, the only one, is Islam. The Islam that shapes the Middle East inculcates in Muslims the self-perception that they are members of a civilization implacably hostile to the West. The United States is a competitor to be overcome, not the herald of a culture to be embraced.

President Carter has been a student of the biblical Holy Land all his life. For the last three decades, as president of the United States and as founder of The Carter Center, he has studied the complex and interrelated issues of the region's conflicts and has been actively involved in reconciling them. He knows the leaders of all factions in the region who will need to play key roles, and he sees encouraging signs among them.

In the summer of 2014, renowned American Indian studies professor Steven Salaita had his appointment to a tenured professorship revoked by the board of trustees of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Salaita's employment was terminated in response to his public tweets criticizing the Israeli government's summer assault on Gaza. Salaita's firing generated a huge public outcry, with thousands petitioning for his reinstatement, and more than 5,000 scholars pledging to boycott UIUC.

Journalist Krithika Varagur's Da'wa chronicles the House of Saud as it systematically transforms the Muslim world in its own image, in one of the major imperial projects in today's world, on par with China's economic diplomacy. Since 1979, Saudi Arabia has spent $1.8 billion per year, by one estimate, to propagate its puritanical brand of Islam, called Salafism or Wahhabism. It has kept scrupulous records of its religious activity in 27 countries, with over 4,000 Salafi preachers on its payroll worldwide.

Gershon Baskin's memoir of 38 years of intensive pursuit of peace begins with a childhood on Long Island and a bar mitzvah trip to Israel with his family. Baskin joined Young Judaea back in the States, then later lived on a kibbutz in Israel, where he announced to his parents that he had decided to make aliya, emigrate to Israel. They persuaded him to return to study at NYU, after which he finally emigrated under the auspices of Interns for Peace. In Israel he spent a pivotal two years living with Arabs in the village of Kufr Qara.

Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon began working on this book shortly after leaving the National Security Council, where, as director and senior director for counterterrorism, they watched the rise of al-Qaeda and helped coordinate America’s fight against Usama bin Laden and his organization. They warned in articles and interviews about the appearance of a new breed of terrorists who were determined to kill on the grand scale.

This book tells the stories of the Muslims, Christians, Jews and others who made a courageous stand against the mass slaughter of Ottoman Armenians in 1915, the first modern genocide. Foreigners and Ottomans alike ran considerable risks to bear witness and rescue victims, sometimes sacrificing their lives. Diplomats, humanitarians, missionaries, lawyers and other visitors to the Empire stood up, including Tolstoy's daughter, Alexandra; Raphael Lemkin, the jurist who first established genocide as an international crime; and the polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen.

Hundreds of thousands of Kurds were murdered under the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein. Some four thousand Kurdish villages were destroyed. Betrayed again and again by the nations of the world, the Kurds were as decimated as any people in history. Then came the Kurdish Miracle, that combination of ancient wisdom and modern economic genius that is now making the Kurdish homeland one of the most prosperous places on earth.

The Future of Palestine: How Discrimination Hinders Change was inspired by the shocking "honor killing" of the author's classmate and friend, Israa Ghrayeb. Her alleged crime? The simple act of going out, in broad daylight, with her fiancé and his sister - an act Ghrayeb's cousin maintained was unacceptable in a conservative society. While Ghrayeb's killers may be free, their manner of thinking is anything but. Tamar Haddad seeks to open minds to diverse perspectives and to give voice to those who are commonly marginalized in conservative Palestinian society.

SIDEN 2002 HAR Recep Tayyip Erdogan og hans islamiske parti vundet samtlige valg i Tyrkiet. Dæmoniseret i Vesten som populist og totalitær despot repræsenterer Erdogan på hjemmebanen en ny national selvbevidsthed, der har gjort hans land til en regional stormagt og medlem af G20-klubben. På under 20 år er Tyrkiet blevet ændret til en moderne, islamorienteret stat, og Erdogan har med halvdelen af vælgernes samtykke gennemført hidtil usete sociale og økonomiske forbedringer af tyrkernes levevilkår, men samtidig konsekvent set stort på menneskerettigheder, demokrati og ytringsfrihed.