By Jonathan Spyer

Saudi and Gulf leaders held discussions in Riyadh this week on proposed moves toward greater unity. The meeting, however, revealed little genuine enthusiasm for such a project outside of Saudi Arabia itself and beleaguered Bahrain.

But while it is unlikely that proposals for greater Gulf unity will bear fruit, the very fact that they are being raised at all is significant. It reflects two things: firstly, the overriding concerns felt by Saudi Arabia regarding Iranian ambitions in the Gulf area and beyond; and secondly, the Saudi conviction since the Arab Spring that the West and the US cannot be relied upon and that therefore the Gulf monarchies themselves must organize – in their own neighborhood as well as outside it – to defend their interests.

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By Phillip Smyth

As the Syrian revolution against Bashar al-Asad’s rule enters its first year, Asad appears to have a good command over Syria’s large and fractious minority community. Three of the most prominent minority groups include the Christians, Druze, and Kurds. Asad’s control of these groups was not happenstance but the result of a number of hard- and soft-power moves executed by the regime. These calculations did not simply involve direct internal dealings with said minorities, but also outreach to their populations living in neighboring states and abroad. Due to the regime’s many policies, minority support may continue for some time.

Our way of government is not identical with that which is pursued with such conspicuous success in highly civilised and settled countries like your own. We leave the various communities and tribes alone to settle their internal differences. It is only where tribe wars on tribe, religion on religion, or their quarrels stop the traffic on the Sultan’s highway that we interfere. What would you have, mon ami? We are here in Asia!” – An Ottoman governor in Syria to author Marmaduke Pickthall, late nineteenth century.[1]

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By Janice Kephart, CIS.org

On Wednesday, May 9, House appropriators mark up their FY 2013 Subcommittee Draft Homeland Security Appropriations bill. The budget refuses the Obama administration requests to lower funding for enforcement activity on and inside the border, and denies a reorganization that would have destroyed the independence of arguably the most important border program that checks biometrics at the border to assure that people are who they say they are.

Here are the breakdowns:

Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
Total appropriations requested – $10,344,641,000
Total appropriations recommended – $10,164,401,000

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (CBP)
ICE total appropriations requested – $5,332,192,000
ICE total appropriations recommended – $5,473,787,000

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by Daniel Doron*

Last summer’s peaceful mass demonstrations in Israel protested economic hardships resulting from excessive government interference in the economy.

The protests were ignited by Izhak Elrov, a young religious father who started a Facebook page calling for the boycott of one consumer item, cottage cheese, which was selling in Israel for double what it cost abroad. Mr. Elrov protested that price-gouging by Israeli monopolies had inflated the price of most consumer goods and services by 100% to 300% over average European and American prices. One hundred thousand Israelis “liked” his page. Hundreds picketed supermarkets.

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by Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson*

A Quinnipiac poll in April showed Chris Christie the most popular potential Republican vice-presidential candidate, thanks to his budget cuts and standing up to government employee unions. But the governor of New Jersey has a problem, specifically an Islam problem, in the way of his possible ascent to higher office. We regret to report that, time and again, he has sided with Islamist forces against those safeguarding American security and civilization.

Some examples:

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By Barry Rubin

It is being reported–though I haven’t fully confirmed it–that the totally chaotic Egyptian presidential election will be postponed until after a constitution is written. That means the military will hold onto power for what? several months? most of this year? who knows. Having made one tough decision–to run a presidential candidate–the Muslim Brotherhood must now decide whether it wants to play it safe, given its control of parliament, and make the president weak or go for a strong president, believing that its own candidate would win and could be trusted to follow orders.

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A briefing by Michael Rubin*

Michael Rubin, a former editor of the Middle East Quarterly, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School. He formerly served as a political adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and has written extensively about Iranian history and politics. He is the author of Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami’s Iran (2001) and the co-author of Eternal Iran (2005). On March 19, Rubin addressed the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia about the efficacy of sanctions on Iran as well as the prospect and logistics of an Israeli strike.

Can sanctions against the Iranian regime be effective? Michael Rubin addressed this question by citing Tehran’s former nuclear negotiator, who revealed that previous suspensions of Iranian nuclear enrichment had merely been temporary ploys aimed at ameliorating international pressure and preventing a UN consensus on sanctions. Rubin argued that Iran’s bleak current economic outlook is due not to sanctions but to the regime’s mismanagement of the economy.

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By Barry Rubin

Iraq is in a mess. Violence continues. Factionalism leads to endless bickering. Corruption is at high levels. Christians live in fear or flee altogether. Islamism is constantly creeping forward. Yet I would suggest that with all these shortcomings the “Iraqi model” is the best that can be expected for the Middle East.

What’s the worst-case scenario? Iran, Afghanistan, Gaza, Sudan, or the permanent civil war situation in Syria, Yemen, and probably Libya.

It isn’t that democracy is theoretically impossible or incompatible in principle with Islam or Arab society. The problem is that it just isn’t going to happen at this particular point in history. What you or I or small groups of moderate democratic Arabs, or naïve Western journalists want isn’t relevant here.

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by Damla Aras*

As Syria sinks deeper and deeper into the throes of civil war, the decade-long honeymoon between Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and Bashar al-Assad’s regime has all but ended. Fearing the possible spread of the revolt to Turkish territory, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu cold-shouldered their hitherto feted ally, openly siding with the rebels. They sheltered thousands of refugees fleeing government repression, including scores of military defectors, conferred with opposition leaders, and even threatened military intervention should the regime continue its brutal crackdown.[1] In August, Erdoğan warned that “we reached the end of our patience”;[2] three months later, he lauded the “massacred” rebels as “martyrs,” prophesying that “the Syrian nation will reap the results of its glorious resistance.”[3] As President Assad ignores these admonitions, has Turkey reached the limits of “soft power” and will it revert to the instruments of hard power to find stability on its southern border?

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By Jon Feere, CIS.org

Ten states have joined California in filing an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court objecting to what they allege are unconstitutional provisions of Arizona’s S.B. 1070, the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act”. The 10 other states are New York, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Among other things, California et al. argue that Arizona’s law has “interstate effects”, namely that it would drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and into other states. As explained in the brief:

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by Yvette Talhamy*

As Syrian president Bashar al-Assad struggles to contend with a massive popular uprising, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (SMB) is poised to dominate whatever coalition of forces manages to unseat the Baathist regime. Though in many ways the Brotherhood’s official political platform is a model of Islamist moderation and tolerance, it is less a window into the group’s thinking than a reflection of its political tactics. Unlike its parent organization, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which often kept its ideological opponents at arm’s length, the SMB has repeatedly forged alliances with secular dissident groups even as it secretly tried to negotiate a deal with the Assad regime to allow its return from exile. Since the moderation of its political platform over the past two decades has clearly been intended to facilitate this triangulation, it does not tell us much about the ultimate intentions of the Syrian Brotherhood.

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By Barry Rubin

Is there going to be a “third intifada?” I have no idea. That is a question most likely to be determined by those who set Palestinian strategy and they will surely differ among themselves. What interests me is the question of what factors would determine their choice.

When this issue is discussed publicly it is attributed almost entirely to the idea that frustration will motivate revolt. This is certainly the point made by Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders. The argument is that unless they get their way diplomatically violence will be the logical outcome.

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Ronald W. Mortensen, CIS.org

After suffering legislative reverses in 2008 and 2010 when bills passed that mandated the use of E-Verify, Utah’s large, pro-illegal alien establishment has reasserted its political power.

Although Utah is considered to be the reddest of the red states because it consistently elects Republicans, that does not mean that it is conservative nor does it mean that its moral compass is working.

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Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda won the 2011 World Press Photo of the Year award Friday for an image of a veiled woman holding a wounded relative in her arms after a demonstration in Yemen. … the image has religious ‘almost Biblical’ overtones and noted its resemblance in composition to Michelangelo’s Pieta — but in a Muslim setting. …”

- CBC, Feb 10, 2012

“Almost Biblical.” Not… even… close… Comparing Michelangelo’s Pietà to some snapshot of a burqa-ed Muslim woman holding some injured Yemeni street protester is an ideal example of Westerners wearing rose-colored glasses. Many Western “intellectuals” are bending over backwards to placate the largely violent and intolerant Muslim World, because they want to believe in an “Arab Spring.” The Pietà “analogy” is not an analogy at all. It is political correctness gone mad.

The burqa-ed woman is wearing latex gloves, for Christ’s sake! Is she afraid of being soiled by or soiling the wounded man she’s holding? Why is the woman covered from head to toe in black, except for an eye-slit? Because Islamists are so repressed a la Freud that they can’t trust themselves to look upon their own women. The burqa is the sure sign of the third-place status of Muslim women — they can’t drive, work, or be seen to varying degrees depending on what dysfunctional Islamic country in which they reside. Yemen ranks worst in the world according to The Global Gender Gap Report.

Yemen may be or become the top stronghold of al-Qaeda. The country is notorious for Islamic extremism; it’s opposition “is anti-Western and strongly opposes [President] Saleh['s] government;” Yemen’s president and family are corrupt, at times in cahoots with Muslim radicals. The “Arab Spring” is a Western wishful-thinking fantasy and in reality is a grab for power by Islamist extremists (see here, here, and here).

Jesus was a man of peace. His mother Mary stood by his side through the worst of times — and she didn’t wear a burqa or latex gloves. “Jesus publicly included many women as his disciples” (see here also for Biblical citations). When Jesus rose from the dead, the first person he appeared to was Mary Magdalene.

So to you “jurors” for selecting the 2011 World Press Photo of the Year award: You got it wrong. It’s a photo — and not the best I’ve ever seen. Do you morons remember who Michelangelo was and what he accomplished — like his David? Michelangelo’s work was sublime, not the product of some digital, idiot-proof, one-shot camera.

This is no Pieta…not even close.

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by Daniel Pipes*

It’s not every day that someone like the U.S. secretary of defense forecasts an ally’s move but this just happened when Leon Panetta said that he believes, in the paraphrase of a Washington Post reporter, that “there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June.” Thoughts on this unusual statement:

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