Hilal Khashan: The Political Isolation of Lebanese Sunnis

The following by Hilal Khashan is reposted here with permission of Middle East Forum:

The Political Isolation of Lebanese Sunnis

by Hilal Khashan
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2013, pp. 69-75 (view PDF)

The delicate fabric that is the Lebanon polity, only recently rewoven after decades of civil war, is once again on the verge of unraveling. Recent events—between the ascendance of Shiite groups through the February 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri to the current Syrian civil war—have caught one of the most prominent sectarian groups, the Sunnis, unprepared. How this has come about is a convoluted tale of jockeying for power between rival politicians and ethnicities.

The Victims Of The Arab Spring Are Not Just Christians -- They Are Shiite Muslims Too

The following by Raymond Ibrahim is reposted here with permission of Middle East Forum:

Shias: The Arab Spring's Latest Victims

 

by Raymond Ibrahim
June 25, 2013

The U.S.-sponsored "Arab Spring" continues to expose itself as a Sunni supremacist takeover. While the indicators are many—from the al-Qaeda Benghazi consulate attack to the ongoing persecution of Christian minorities—attacks on Shia Muslims are also on the rise.

Barry Rubin: The Middle East: Brave New World or Scary New Master?

The Middle East: Brave New World or Scary New Master?

by Barry Rubin

“How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!”


“Caliban has a new master….Freedom, hey-day! hey-day, freedom! freedom, hey-day, freedom!”
--William Shakespeare, “The Tempest


If you want a sense of where the Middle East is going, consider this viewpoint from an unlikely source. Suat Kiniklioglu is not just a member of the Turkish Parliament for the ruling (Islamist) AK party, he’s a member of the party’s Central Executive Committee and deputy chair of the party’s foreign affairs commission. In other words, he’s a very important person in Turkey’s ruling establishment and especially foreign policy.

Yet rather than take an optimistic view about the advance of Islamic politics in the region, he’s very worried, worried enough to write a column entitled, “Back to a Barbarian Age” in the May 16 edition of the Islamist newspaper, Today’s Zaman.