Dr. Walid Phares

Obama abstract on the Middle East, admits Jihadi expansion, ignores Taliban after 2014

In his State of the Union speech of 2013, President Barack Obama addressed several crises in the Middle East and on the front of fighting terror. On Afghanistan President Obama assessed the outcome of his policies as a weakening of the Taliban and committed to a sustained withdrawal from the country while helping the Afghan Government to take the lead in military missions. The role of the US after withdrawal in 2014, according to Obama will be to assist the fight against al Qaeda.

Why Americans of Mideast Descent Have Shifted to Romney

When Senator Barack Obama ran for office in 2008, most Americans of Arabic and Middle Eastern origin supported him. Mobilized as were many Americans for “change” on the one hand, these communities were also submitted to an impressive campaign by Islamist-leaning organizations and supporters of Arab regimes, on the other hand, all opposed to the incumbent’s foreign policy then. They used President Bush’s endorsement of Arizona Senate Republican John McCain to frame Obama’s opponent as anti-Arab and border Islamophobe. To them, Obama was squaring off with a candidate who supported the so-called “Bush wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Romney’s Strategy not Obama’s doctrine will advance Freedom in the Middle East

As Governor Romney and President Obama continue to debate foreign policy and national security, voters would be wise to evaluate the “Obama Doctrine” against the current combustible state of affairs that it has led to in the Greater Middle East.

Prague’s Havel is gone waiting for the Middle Eastern Havels to come

As I was watching the carriage transporting the late Vaclav Havel, the first President of free post-Communist Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic, into the Prague Castle I was sobered and deeply moved. Having been a witness to major world changes spanning from the end of the twentieth to the start of the twenty-first centuries, I was now watching the departure of a giant of his time who happened to be a modest and a shy man leading a small Central European nation. His words, his life story, and his commitment to liberty have brought hope to many people around the world, far beyond those who speak Czech.

Middle East Studies failed to predict and address the “Arab Spring”

When the young Tunisian burned himself in protest against authoritarian oppression and lack of economic justice, triggering massive demonstrations in this small North African country, commentators hesitated to coin the movement as an Arab Spring. It took months, and events exploding in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria before the West coined the upheavals "Arab Spring." And as the movement was developing throughout the region the West was also unsure as to which direction these revolutions are going to go.

Iran’s MAD strategy has a strategic rationale

My first book, The Iranian Islamic Revolution, published way back in 1986, dealt with the historicity of the 1979 Khomeinist Revolution in Iran. In it, I exposed the Khomeinist regime’s long-term ambitions and revisionist account of events that led to the Shah’s overthrow and Ayatollah Khomeini’s ascent to power in the alleged Islamic “Republic” of Iran.

Iran’s Botched Act of War in Washington

For the Iranian regime to attempt a terror strike on American soil, and particularly in Washington DC, including a high profile assassination and blowing up two important Middle Eastern embassies, it means that the Ayatollahs have crossed the conventional red line separating them from the previously cautious strategies of Terror.

Arab Spring Falls on Egypt’s Coptic Christians

The credibility of the Arab Spring took a bloody hit on Sunday October 9th when Egyptian Army forces shot dead more than thirty Christian Copts and wounded scores of them. In addition, the action by the Army was paralleled by armed men, described as Salafi Jihadists by Coptic sources, seen also shooting and hitting demonstrators with knives. At a few weeks from the legislative elections in Egypt, this violence impacts the debate about the Spring of Egypt but also challenges US and European policies towards the current and perhaps the forthcoming Government. Can the West support - and fund - a regime that kills members of the weakest community in Egypt, months after the fall of Mubarak?

Al Awlaki is gone but his Jihadists are multiplying

Imam Anwar al Awlaki held two important positions in the cobweb of international Jihadi terror. First, he was one of the emerging younger leaders of al Qaeda after the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Out of Yemen, from which his family originates, he had built a network of recruits capable of performing missions in the Arabian Peninsula, but also communicating with the Shabab of Somalia and many cells inside the West.

Ten years after 9/11 Jihadis are winning the War

A decade after the jihadi strikes against America’s military and financial centers at the hands of al-Qaida, the question remains: Have we won the war?

Post Qaddafi: Insurgency and Jihad versus Democracy

By seizing most of Tripoli and fighting what's left of the pockets of resistance of Qaddafi forces, Libyan rebels have now almost dislodged the old regime and are expected to begin building their own government.

What should the Bin Laden Files tell us

The free world has waited patiently for 10 to 20 years to learn the master plan of international jihadism’s “al-Za’im,” (English: “the leader”) Osama bin Laden. Because Seal Team Six dropped in on the al-Qaida leader’s Abbottabad domicile unannounced, he was unable to marshal a defense or dispose of the stockpile of strategic documentation he had preserved on digital storage media and in paper files.

Takeover is the Taliban plan for Afghanistan

Before and after President Barack Obama announced the new U.S. strategy on Afghanistan, I engaged in a variety of media panels and private discussions with commentators and analysts from Arab and Muslim-majority regions of the world.

Muslim Brotherhood Riding the Crest of Arab Spring

In my most recent book, "The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East" (completed July 4, 2010), I argue that civil societies in the Greater Middle East and Arab world had reached a “critical stage” in their repudiation of all authoritarian forms of government: regime, theocracy, military and ultra-nationalist.

US Aid to Arab Spring must go to democracy groups not to Islamists

President Obama's grand plan to provide U.S. financial aid to emerging democracies in the Middle East, Egypt and Tunisia now, and possibly later a post-Saleh Yemen and post-Assad Syria, may be commendable but could bring catastrophic results.

The US got Bin Laden but missed the Nuremberg trial of Jihadism

He was number one on world's "Most Wanted" list, a serial mass murderer of Americans the United States wanted dead or alive, a fugitive from UN justice pursued by the nations of the world, and to millions of people around the world, evil incarnate. Osama Bin Laden's (OBL) conscious disregard for the sanctity of human life manifested itself in the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians in the US, Europe, and Central and South Asia.

Assad’s Taqiyya against His People

Although the origins of al-Taqiyya are found in fundamentalist dogma regarding propaganda, Ba’athists and other authoritarian regimes in the region have used the practice for decades. In short, once widespread opposition to his one-party regime became evident, Assad needed to shield himself from international retribution. In an effort to buy time, the Syrian dictator announced that he would cancel ‘emergency law' which forbids demonstrations and limits free speech.

After Gaddafi, Democracy or Jihadists?

We all agree that Colonel Gaddafi is a dictator, that he supported terrorism against the U.S. and France, was responsible for the tragedy of PanAm 103, that he funded, armed and trained radicals in many African countries such as in Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Haute Volta, and in a few Middle Eastern countries, including Lebanon. We all are aware that his regime oppressed his people and tortured and jailed his opponents for four decades. I observed Gaddafi ruling Libya unchecked during and after the Cold War before and after 9/11 and he was received by liberal democracies as a respectable leader.

Hezbollah’s Coup in Lebanon Targets the Cedars Revolution

Last week, Hezbollah overthrew the Lebanese government. The constitutional coup, which effectively strips Prime Minister Saad Hariri of his powers, was timed with precision. As soon as news broke that he would meet President Obama in Washington, the group brought down Lebanon's cabinet. Hariri's father, Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, was blown up along with his escort and a number of other Lebanese politicians almost exactly six years earlier, on February 14, 2005.

Hezbollah’s war on International Justice

On Wednesday , Hezbollah brought down Lebanon’s democratic government. The group withdrew its ministers from the cabinet, crumbling the unity government in an impeccably-timed constitutional coup only a few hours before prime minister Saad Hariri was to meet President Obama in Washington.