By Dr. Saud Al-Sarhan   Abstract: In recent months, as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s organization, known as the Islamic State (IS), has grown in influence and renown, tensions between it and other ِAl-Qaeda affiliates in the Middle East have increased. For the time being, al-Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), led by Abu Basir al-Wuhayshi, is trying to put off a confrontation with IS in order to avoid internecine conflict and divided loyalties within its membership. As al-Qaeda’s major personalities clash over differences in strategy and ambition, the question remains: Is AQAP headed for a bloody civil conflict?

Libya on the Brink and How to Pull it Back: Options for International Actors Christopher Thornton Shawwal 1436 August 2015   Abstract: The launch of Operation Dignity in May 2014 transformed Libya’s low-level military and political conflict into a full-blown war. The seizure of Tripoli and much of western Libya by the opposing Libya Dawn movement left the country divided in two with two parliaments, two governments, and two putative armies

?Kurdish Islamists in Iraq, from the Muslim Brotherhood to the so-called “Islamic State:” Continuity or Departure Mohammed Shareef Issue 5 – Shaban 1436 June 2015   Abstract: The major Islamist groups in the Kurdistan region of Iraq have long been part of the political landscape both at the subnational Kurdistan level and at the Iraqi national level. They gradually emerged in the late 1980s and became mo

The Obama administration’s record in the Middle East from 2008 to the present included several failed opportunities, although what stood above all else was the lack of urgency to tackle the Arab-Israeli peace process, still the enduring concern that galvanizes Arab opinion. With little hope for any prospects for a revival in the aftermath of a public row between Mr. Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it seems that Obama opted to maintain a critical distance between his administration and perennial Middle Eastern concerns.  Still, three specific issues are identified in this paper that, inter alia, highlight both existing challenges and fresh ones tha

Issue 17. Jumada1 1436 18 March 2015>   Abstract: As mainstream narratives focus on the truly horrendous forms of violence carried out against Iraqi and Syrian civilians by the so-called “Islamic State,” little attention is being paid to the many acts being carried out against national unity and state-institutions in Iraq and Syria at the hands of extremist movements of militant Shiite ideologies. Too often dismissed as merely an effect or unfortunate consequence of their Sunni equivalent, Shiite militia

Fatemeh Shams Issue 3 – Jumada’1 1436 H – February 2015   :Abstract The present study tackles the question of the relationship between poetry and power in Iran in three periods, with a specific focus on the third one. The first period stretches from the rise of Persian court poetry in the medieval period to its demise in the wake of the constitutional movement (1905–11). The second reaches from the rise of constitutional and modern poetry to the emergence of pro-revolutionary poetry at the outset of the 1979 revolution. The third features the emergence of

Issue 16. November 2014 (Safar 1436 H.)   Abstract: The succession mechanisms and processes for the Supreme Leader post in the Islamic Republic have been one of the more contentious and nebulous elements in post-revolutionary Iran’s statecraft. A unique position, which is not immediately comparable to other “summit” institutions of modern state systems, such as the presidency of a republic, the helm of a monarchy, or the highest military rank in a junta, the Supreme Leader in Iran is effectively an irreplacea

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Salvaging the “Axis of Resistance,” Preserving Strategic Depth ?The Iranian Political Elite and Syria: Parallel Tracks with a Single Objective Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi Issue 1 – Muharram 1436 H – November 2014