Latest Articles about Middle East
NATO AND U.S. RALLY SUPPORT FOR ESTONIA
Responding to Russia’s bullying of Estonia (see EDM, April 27, May 1, 3) the U.S. White House has invited Estonian President Toomas Ilves to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush on June 25 in Washington. The invitation itself, and the announcement’s timing in May,... MORE
MUKHU ALIEV’S CLAN COMES TO POWER IN MAKHACHKALA
Dagestan elected a new parliament on March 11. As with other regions of Russia, the Kremlin wanted to guarantee a victory for the two pro-Kremlin parties, United Russia and Just Russia. First, the authorities focused all of their efforts on preventing opposition parties from winning... MORE
ESTONIA ALERTS THE EU TO RUSSIA’S CHALLENGE
The violent rioting by several thousand Russian youths in Estonia on April 27-29 obscures the larger fact that hundreds of thousands of Russians in the country have not in any way become involved in illegal behavior or political protests, despite continuing incitement from Moscow. Although... MORE
RUSSIA BEGINS CYBER ATTACKS AGAINST ESTONIAN GOVERNMENT
The Kremlin’s assault on Estonia is intensifying on four levels of varying sophistication. These include: cyber attacks from within Russia’s Presidential Administration against the Estonian presidency’s and government’s electronic communications; political demands, backed by economic sanctions threats, to change the Estonian government; siege laid by... MORE
RUSSIAN AUTHORITIES, MEDIA INFLAME SITUATION IN ESTONIA
Tallinn is trying hard to defuse the crisis by initiating a political dialogue with Moscow. To start a dialogue at the parliamentary level, the Estonian Parliament’s Chairwoman, Ene Ergma, invited a Russian delegation, headed by the Duma’s Veterans Affairs Committee chairman Nikolai Kovalyov, to Estonia... MORE
PUTIN CANCELS CFE UNTIL NATO COUNTRIES PROPERLY “ADHERE” TO ITS PROVISIONS
The Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty of 1990 has been in trouble for many years, but last week it became apparent that its long illness maybe terminal. During talks on Monday, April 23, in Moscow, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told U.S. Defense Secretary... MORE
Major Arrests Highlight Security Situation in Saudi Arabia
On April 27, the Saudi Ministry of Interior announced that it had disrupted a large-scale and wide-ranging terrorist plot made up of seven cells, with plans to target oil facilities and military bases with hijacked airliners, stage assassinations and mount a prison break. Of the... MORE
ALIEN VANDALISM IN ESTONIA’S CAPITAL
The city of Tallinn is assessing the damage after two consecutive nights of violent rioting by gangs of mostly young local Russians. The third night passed relatively quietly. Ostensibly triggered by the expected relocation of the Red Army monument (the Bronze Soldier) from downtown Tallinn,... MORE
Turkey’s Coming Offensive Against the Iraqi-based PKK
The creation of a largely autonomous and peaceful "Kurdistan" in northern Iraq is often trumpeted as a major success in post-Baathist Iraq. Any progress made, however, toward an independent nation for the stateless Kurds creates great uneasiness in Turkey, Syria and Iran, all of which... MORE
Divisions Within the Iraqi Insurgency
With so many actors in the Iraqi insurgent theater, it is hard to keep track of the various permutations of militant Islamic groups and their alliances. It is going to become all the more difficult given recent splits and conflicts between and within indigenous Iraqi... MORE