Middle East Articles

On October 5, 2001, the Tampa Tribune published a short article regarding a flight that “the federal government says…never took place.” The flight left Tampa at 4:37 p.m. on September 13, 2001, two days after the 9/11 attacks. On board were three young Saudis (some FBI documents say four) that probably included the son of Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, now Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. In a chartered eight-passenger Learjet the youths left for Lexington, Kentucky, where they were met by security and escorted to a hotel to join relatives awaiting departure.

In the past decade, Turkey has consistently imprisoned more journalists than any other country. although Turkey's repression of free speech ought to be internationally newsworthy given its status as a democratic nation, the issue has been overshadowed by the country's more sensational human rights controversies involving Kurds, Greek Cypriots, and Armenians.

In recent months, top officials in the US government have been calling attention to the reported progress in Iraq. According to current data, positive trends do in fact exist. This is not meant to congratulate the Bush administration-whatever success the surge is having now makes one wonder what might have been possible had we followed the advice of General Eric Shinseki and others who counseled a robust invasion and occupation force from the start. The situation in Iraq is hardly good; it is simply much better than it was last year. But the stakes in achieving a semblance of stability in Iraq are so high for the region and the world that even those who do not support this administration should welcome the favorable developments.

Due to its importance, water is a double-edged sword. In addition to water’s life-giving properties, it acts as a major source of conflict in areas that have a limited supply. Middle Eastern countries have had to divide water sources while ignoring all political boundaries, which has generated a great deal of hostility. Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, which share the Tigris-Euphrates water, and Israel and Palestine, which share the Jordan River basin, are cases illustrative of the relationship dynamic among riparian states and of the effect a scarcity of water has had in the greater Middle East.