Middle East

It is no secret that President Barack Obama has been in some regards a profound disappointment to the American Left, and his erratic and often disgraceful performance on the Egypt crisis exemplifies his faults in this regard. (Tom Engelhardt puts it best regarding the administration: “It has shown itself to be weak, visibly fearful, at […]

The crowds in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo were again very large on Tuesday, and new networks of people joined in them, showing that the protest movement is expanding. Many newcomers appear to have been impressed by the DreamTv interview with Wael Ghonim (scroll down), which ended with him sobbing over the deaths of some […]

Christopher Anzalone writes in a guest column for Informed Comment: Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood & the Demonstrations: Fact vs. Fiction Since the start of mass popular protests by Egyptians against their country’s autocratic government, headed by the aging president Hosni Mubarak and his new vice president, Omar Suleiman, a great deal of attention has been paid […]

Here is part of an interview I did Monday evening with Susie Madrak via Virtually Speaking’s Blogtalk Radio: The full interview is here: Listen to internet radio with Jay Ackroyd on Blog Talk Radio

The Egyptian military government, which is still running the country in accordance with martial law “emergency rules,” on Monday released from custody Wael Ghonim, the young Google executive who played a role in organizing the January 25 demonstrations that kicked off Egypt’s current crisis. He was interviewed on the “10:00 PM” program of Egypt’s DreamTV […]

I noticed a lot of television commentators wondering why no one predicted the unrest in Egypt. I’d just like to draw attention to the number 1 item in my New Year’s list of 2011 challenges for US foreign policy. While it is not exactly a prediction of what we are seeing today on our television […]

Sunday saw a return to Egypt of themes of national unity across the Christian-Muslim divide that recalled the heyday of early Egyptian nationalism in 1919, when the modern nation was formed in the cauldron of mass demonstrations against British colonial rule. Nowadays, Copts are roughly 10 percent of the Egyptian population, or about 8 million […]