IAP Book Effects of Government Mandates and Policies on Public Education in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East

The region is one of the regions where agriculture was independently discovered, and from the Middle East it was spread, during the Neolithic, to different regions of the world such as Europe, the Indus Valley and Eastern Africa. As a result, initiatives for development, reduction of poverty, tackling of unemployment, and promotion of civil rights and freedoms have all failed. Project MUSE promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide. Forged from a partnership between a university press and a library, Project MUSE is a trusted part of the academic and scholarly community it serves. But the sentiments of the Arab public could not be more different from their governments’ official statements.

The country has long served as a mediator in the region, reducing tensions between various groups. Now that its scores on the CPI and other indicators are deteriorating, regional and international actors are less likely to trust the country in this role, threatening future attempts to establish and maintain stability. This exciting new edition of the successful textbook for students of Middle Eastern politics provides a highly relevant and comprehensive introduction to the complexities of a region in constant flux. In the current climate, no Gulf country is likely to risk angering its population or inflaming anti-Israel sentiments in the Arab and Islamic world by pursuing normalization negotiations with Israel. Gulf Arabs feel that their governments should stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and halt all forms of cooperation with Israel. The expansion of the conflict into Lebanon could quickly transform into a regional war, as it may draw in Iran’s proxy forces from as far as Iraq and Yemen and entangle the region in hard-to-predict dynamics.

US, UK mull strikes against Iran-backed Houthis following Red Sea attacks

The Constitutional Revolution in 1906 replaced the absolute monarchy with a constitutional monarchy. Iran’s parliamentary government led by Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq was toppled in a 1953 coup d’état by royalist forces supported and funded by CIA and MI6 after Mohammed Mosaddeq nationalized Iranian oil. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi became the preeminent leader in Iran, and instated Fazlollah Zahedi from the military as the new Prime Minister.[29] United States has considered the Middle East Government Shah as a close ally and Iran as its main base in the Middle East. These and other policies contributed to alienating nationalists, leftists, and religious groups. The most populous countries in the region are Egypt, Turkey, and Iran, while Saudi Arabia is the largest Middle Eastern country by area. Corruption risks in Qatar go far beyond the FIFA World Cup event in 2022, as public access to relevant information on state procurement and government budgeting is highly restricted.

There is also an Oasis Berber-speaking community in Egypt where the language is also known as Siwa. The Middle East is very diverse when it comes to religions, many of which originated there. Islam is the largest religion in the Middle East, but other faiths that originated there, such as Judaism and Christianity,[43] are also well represented.

Locals fight their own war on drugs in Syria’s Daraa Province

Jean-Loup Samaan analyzes how regional powers in the Middle East are reconsidering the multilateral balance of their foreign policy arrangements. The Saudi leadership understands that the Palestinian cause still weighs in its domestic and international clout, in its bargaining with the United States, and its rivalry with other Islamic players, such as Iran, Qatar, and Türkiye. The Saudi approach to this rivalry is however more tilted toward regional consensus building. Most notably, the Saudi crown prince had his first call with the Iranian president since both countries normalized relations in March to discuss the war in Gaza—despite the Iranian leader’s not-so-subtle message to Saudi Arabia as “betting on a losing horse” by seeking normalization with Israel. The government will come under considerable pressure to change its tune, from both a pro-Palestinian public opinion and a range of domestic political actors. Even the main opposition party, the center-left Republican People’s Party representing a firmly secular electorate, has been supportive of Hamas, blaming the repressive policies of Israel for the attack.

The current regimes retain their grip on power, but the governments have done little to direct resources to support the people. Fighting has collapsed the infrastructure, leaving much of the population without access to clean water, health care and food. Corruption was one of the main criticisms of the government when the civil war began eight years ago.

Algeria remains one of the lesser researched countries in the MENA and Arab world, due to its past conflicts and perceived inaccessibility to many social scientists. In terms of broadcast media, the National Company for Radio and Television began to stream online in the early 2000s various programs for Moroccans living abroad; it streams daily news clips in Spanish, Tamazight, French, and Moroccan Arabic. Radio Méditerranée Internationale is a Tangiers-based radio station that plays a fun, eclectic mix of music (Moroccan, American, African, Middle Eastern, and European) and broadcasts official news in Arabic and French. To start, an excellent resource for exploring civil society organizations across the Arab world is Arab.org, which is a regional portal for non-governmental organizations that lists close to 4,000 entities. It features a consociational political structure marked by confessionalism, all knit together by regnant tensions, frail institutions, and the shadow of foreign intervention.

Yet a combination of factors, from institutional strategies of governance to geopolitical machinations, have enabled the ruling Hashemite monarchy to persist. This chapter surveys the panorama of religious communities in the MENA, a Muslim-majority region but with Jewish-majority Israel and smaller Christian and non-Abrahamic minorities dispersed throughout. It weighs how religiosity prefigures public attitudes and preferences on social and political issues.

Yet, the ongoing ‘erosion of old orders’ in the Middle East makes such a business-as-usual approach increasingly unsustainable. The end of the Pax Americana – conditioned by US retrenchment, growing roles claimed by Russia and China, and the emergence of assertive regional powers such as Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE – is transforming the https://www.metadialog.com/government/ region’s strategic environment. Like its allies in Washington, London and Paris, Berlin will have to find responses to these new realities. This will inevitably require a balancing act between its normative rhetoric and pragmatic necessities. The MENA region is still perceived as highly corrupt, with little progress made towards controlling corruption.

When leaders failed to establish a democratic state after the ousting of the Gaddafi regime, another civil war erupted between various armed groups, with the latest ceasefire in 2020 still failing to curb violence among factions. As the state is incapacitated, elites battle with each other over the country’s rich oil resources, and corrupt public officials serve themselves instead of the Libyan population. Especially in the western region and along the southern border, armed groups flame tensions as the public lead demonstrations calling for better access to basic services. The country has thus been unable to hold elections, and the UN has claimed key institutional players continue to hinder progress. Lebanon (24) has been caught in a spiral of economic, political, and social disasters since its financial sector imploded as a result of overspending and corruption.

Saudi Arabia, Canada reestablish business council as ties warm

For the moment, Hezbollah’s and Iran’s calculuses are not clear, even though both actors have stated that they will intervene militarily in the event of a ground invasion of Gaza. Current altercations between Israel and Hezbollah are taking place within what appears to be accepted rules of engagement, but this can change at any moment. Lebanon is already in the throes of multiple crises, and the Lebanese, for the most part, are hostile to getting embroiled in this conflict. Indeed, a new front in Lebanon would sow the seeds of the country’s destruction and make it very difficult for Hezbollah to operate in the aftermath.

MEI’s Afghanistan and Pakistan studies center aims to advance a balanced and realistic understanding of the politics, economy, society and foreign policy of these two countries. It works with scholars to produce original research, sponsors lectures, produces opinion pieces, and provides expert analysis with the goal of promoting knowledge about Afghanistan and Pakistan among the American public and within policy making circles. Many Middle Eastern governments use their highly feared secret police—the mukhabarat in Arab countries—to arrest who they want, when they want, and in the complete absence of civil liberties. Highly sophisticated surveillance technology is used to constantly monitor entire populations and crack down on any dissent. In Egypt and Iran, tens of thousands of prisoners are currently behind bars due to their political positions. Saudi Arabia imprisoned more than a dozen female activists in 2018 who peacefully protested for equal rights, subjecting these women to beatings, electric shocks, and sexual abuse.