Omer Aslan | 27 May 2022 | TR
Pakistan is feeling the aftereffects of populist PM Imran Khan’s ouster. With rupee in freefall, dwindling foreign exchange reserves, and Imran Khan in opposition firing salvoes, the new interim government has turned to foreign relations to seek political and economic support from all corners
Omer Aslan | 07 December 2020 | TR
For the last two years, several members of the League of Arab States (LAS) have taken incremental steps to bring Syria back under the LAS tent. Oman never cut diplomatic ties with Syria, and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain reopened their embassies in Damascus. Several other Arab states such as Algeria, Iraq, Tunisia, and Lebanon have been calling for Syria’s return to the League
Omer Aslan | 01 October 2020
The Egyptian Army during the COVID-19 Pandemic Despite the insistence that ‘nothing will ever be the same’ after the COVID-19 pandemic, currently there is more continuity than otherwise in various issues around the world. [...]
Omer Aslan | 05 April 2020 | TR | AR
We should note the absence of any pretense to coordinate national responses at the regional level —whether in the GCC or Arab League (or at the transregional level of even the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)).
Omer Aslan | 25 September 2019 | TR | AR
Pakistan remains a key actor in the Middle East. ‘Islamic Alliance’ would arguably have already been admitted dead-born more easily if Pakistan had refused to join
Omer Aslan | 29 August 2019 | TR | AR
Prime Minister Modi’s government in India has revoked the state of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status from the temporary provisions of the Indian Constitution.
Omer Aslan | 07 September 2016
The AK Party government’s reaction to the failed July 15th coup attempt has been swift. Within a month, the government declared martial law for a three-month period, issued four decrees with the force of law,
Omer Aslan | 31 July 2016 | TR
On July 15th a group of soldiers inside the Turkish military—ordinarily an expert executioner of military coups d’état - carried out the seventh coup attempt in Turkey’s checkered history.
Omer Aslan | 17 February 2016
The Russians flocking to Syria, a ‘lame duck’ American President, and a more daring Iran after the implementation of the nuclear deal with the west all imply that the ‘Islamic Alliance’ proposed hastily and clumsily by Saudi Arabia deserves more serious thought than it has hitherto been granted.
Omer Aslan | 01 November 2015
Political developments after the July 3rd coup in Egypt must be evaluated by taking into account the new character of coups d’état in the post-Cold War period. As a ‘network’ coup, carried out with the active participation of civilians from different sectors in the process, the coup annulled the possibility of the ‘engagement’ and ‘withdrawal’ of the Egyptian military from the system. Without the withdrawal of this entire network, which will be an utterly onerous task, the Egyptian system may only replicate what was once Turkey’s fate, a tutelary democracy, and that only in the long haul. In the meantime, Egyptian President Sisi will have to walk a tightrope to satisfy the demands of three parties: external pressures for economic liberalization and stability, the Egyptian military-as-institution, and his domestic constituency. The logic of the coup as a politicizing, destabilizing, and paranoia-breeding act, however, may defy all these purposes.
