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They say Moscow's opposition to foreign-backed "regime change" reflects a fundamental disagreement with the West over sovereignty and the rights of states to deal with domestic instability by whatever means necessary. "The Russian position can be explained by their hostility to any interference in the internal affairs of a country, especially in the current climate, because at home they have things to be worried about,"

Time and time again, Western officials have confidently briefed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was on the brink of dumping his long-term ally, only to be disappointed

A death toll in Syria of well over 10,000 seems unlikely on its own to change Putin's mind. Estimates vary widely of the number of dead in Chechnya - a conflict in which he was involved as prime minister and president - but often exceed 100,000.

Haji Zadeh said 35 US bases were within reach of Iran's ballistic missiles, the most advanced of which commanders have said could hit targets 2,000 km (1,300 miles) away.

It was not clear where Haji Zadeh got his figures on US bases in the region. US military facilities in the Middle East are located in Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Turkey, and it has around 10 bases further afield in Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Defense analysts are often skeptical about what they describe as exaggerated military assertions by Iran and say the country's military capability would be no match for sophisticated US defense systems.

various obstacles have prevented convergence in policy discourses and processes across both shores of the Mediterranean

The EU’s emphasis on a security-centered approach in migration management and the prioritization of stability over democracy in the MENA region, have led to widening the Euro-Mediterranean gap.

the promotion of democracy and human rights represented one of the major normative objectives of the 1995 Barcelona Declaration. Still, due to a mix of pragmatic and security-driven considerations, the EU has co-operated with authoritarian regimes that upheld stability in the Arab region and in the Euro-Mediterranean order. The EU has moreover promoted a gradualist path of liberalization in the Arab world which consisted in galvanizing economic reforms and providing support to civil society groups. Ironically enough, this gradualist strategy contributed to maintaining the façade of liberalization that autocratic regimes were eager to advertise

Turkey, whose relations with Iran have recently become strained, is not expected to attend the 16th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran later this month, neither at the presidential nor ministerial level, Turkish diplomatic sources told Today's Zaman.

Iran has temporarily suspended visa-free travel with Turkey. Iran has explained this decision as part of security precautions it is taking in connection with the summit in Tehran, which currently holds the three-year rotating NAM presidency

According to the Now Lebanon News Agency, Iran will submit a proposal to NAM to end the conflict taking place on the soil of it close ally, Syria, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in comments published on Friday. "[Iran] has a proposal regarding Syria, which it will discuss with countries taking part in the NAM summit," the Fars News Agency and Mehr News Agency quoted Salehi as saying in comments to state television

The Middle East offers many opportunities for Putin to combine business with pleasure in challenging the United States. Consider its tumultuous strategic environment: a civil war in Syria, a potential civil war in Libya, ongoing political instability in Egypt and Iraq, simmering violence in Yemen, and political uncertainty almost everywhere else. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are deeply engaged in Syria’s war, as are Iran and Hezbollah. Saudi Arabia and Egypt (among others) are frustrated with the United States — the former over Syria and the latter over America’s intervention in its complex politics, where Washington seems to have been on almost every side at one point or another and has consequently alienated almost all sides. Uncertainty about Iran’s intentions further complicates all of this, as does a weakened relationship between the United States and Israel (where Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman appears to be one of Putin’s closer personal contacts among foreign officials). Meanwhile, China has surpassed the United States as the largest buyer of Middle East oil even as broader China-Middle East trade soars. Expanded Russian arms sales — or new Russian nuclear power plants — may only further destabilize the region.

Saudi Arabia and Syria are Russia’s principal security concerns in the Middle East; Moscow’s pre-eminent security interest is in minimizing its own domestic terrorism problem, which means supporting a strong Syrian government that can crack down on extremists and discouraging Saudi and other financial support, whether official or otherwise, for al-Qaeda-connected opposition groups in Syria and extremists in the former Soviet Union. Russia has long viewed Saudi Arabia and Qatar as key sources of support for Chechen militia groups and two Russian operatives were convicted in Qatar in 2004 for assassinating former Chechen leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiev to cut short his fund-raising activity there.

The Kremlin’s position as a veto-wielding permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and its resulting place at the table in the P5+1 process, have been an enduring source of international visibility and influence only recently surpassed by Russia’s Syria role. Moscow also appreciates Iran’s restraint in the former Soviet region and, as a result, sees it as a valuable partner in managing Saudi Arabia. Fundamentally, however, some Russian officials have a conflicted attitude toward Iran, in that they welcome diplomacy as an alternative to US-led war or regime change, but are not especially eager for a US-Iran rapprochement that could undermine Tehran’s interest in their relationship.

For much of the last decade, most have digested the narrative of a Muslim-West divide. It was so pervasive that newly elected US President Barack Obama, portrayed as a symbolic messiah bridging two worlds, was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize before even completing a year of his term. Twelve years after the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks, much of the discussion about the "Muslim world" has internalized this language, and why not? The conflict between the Palestinians and US-supported Israel remains unresolved, US drone strikes continue unabated in Pakistan and Yemen and terrorist attacks like the Boston Marathon bombing are still occurring in deadly fashion.

in recent years approximately 90% of terrorism-related fatalities have been Muslim

The battle lines have shifted from Islam versus the West to Muslim versus Muslim, and it is time for politicians and pundits in the United States and the Middle East alike to catch up

Guest workers often live in villas that “vary from unfinished to decrepit,” several men to a bedroom, kitchen, or toilet, with inadequate sanitation on the outskirts of the urban centers. There are also laws that limit when and where they can take their weekend breaks, even to the point of barring them from certain public parks, beaches, and during certain times of the day – a restriction that Human Rights Watch says is primarily enforced against South Asians, and not Western or Arab expats. As Andrew Gardner and Autumn Watts – anthropologists studying transnational migration in the Gulf – these workers are Invisible Men and Women. They are the largest single demographic in some of these states, but are effectively unseen unless they gather in such numbers to inspire unease among full citizens: “Labor migrants are, of course, visible everywhere in the city — in large work crews, in matching uniforms, on the buses that carry them between labor camps and construction sites — but those encounters from a distance are the limits of typical interaction between them and the middle and upper classes of both foreigners and citizens who make a home, however temporary, on the peninsula.”

Qatar is even more heavily dependent on migrant workers than Saudi Arabia. 87% of the population consists of migrants, and 94% of the entire labor force is from overseas – which means that only 6% of the workforce, as native Qataris, can legally form a union or leave a job without their employer’s permission

A Russian airstrike killed 36 civilians, including five children, in the central Syrian province of Homs on Wednesday, the head of Syria's main opposition group said.

Russian warplanes carried out strikes in three Syrian provinces along with government aircraft on Wednesday, its first military engagement outside the former Soviet Union since the occupation of Afghanistan in 1979.

The ominous Russian military buildup in Syria represents the most significant projection of force beyond the territory of the former Soviet Union since the old Cold War. It will allow Russia to keep the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad in power in Syria, effectively negating the new diplomatic path toward resolution of the regional sectarian war that has been opened up by the Iran nuclear deal

By not confronting Putin and Russia sufficiently over its illegal and unwarranted invasion and occupation of Ukraine, the U.S. and its western allies effectively gave Putin a green light to project force in other key geostrategic hot spots.

The West did do a better job deterring Russian incursions into other parts of Europe. The U.S. fairly rapidly provided security assurances to Poland and the rest of East-Central Europe, building up deterrence against Russia forcibly pushing into these former Soviet satellites in the process. But it blatantly failed to deter Russia from going much further in its invasion and destabilization of Ukraine. The most fundamental pillar of international law and civilization—nonviolation of sovereign borders–was torn down in the process.

Ilham Ehmed, a senior member of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), told Al-Monitor in a brief interview Oct. 8 that “Russia says it wants to work with us” to combat the group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS) and other extremist organizations.

According to the Kurds, the United States has also frustrated their desire to expand their area of control in Syria,

While the United States supported the PYD in expelling IS from Kobani and in capturing Tell Abyad east of Kobani, Washington has promised Turkey not to allow the Kurds to move west toward Afrin in return for allowing the United States to fly bombing runs from Incirlik Air Base, Balanche said. He added that the PYD would face other obstacles in such an operation. “There are 500,000 people between Azaz, al-Bab, Manbaj and Jarabulus, including a Turkmen minority,” he said. “It would be very difficult for the Kurds to capture this area without heavy US support.” Balanche wrote recently that if the United States does not back the Kurdish advance, the PYD will look to Russia and Assad “if that is its only path to a continuous territory in the north.”

The group had “no information that this region is banned, no warning signs, and no instructions from checkpoints on the road, or the Tourism & Antiquities policeman present with them,” Hassan el-Nahla, the chairman of the General Union of Tourist Guides, said in a statement.“Egypt will pay the price of the impact of this incident on the tourism industry,” he said.

Although the helicopter that conducted the attack was military, a spokesman for the Egyptian armed forces sought to deflect responsibility, saying “when it comes to tourists, it is a Ministry of Interior issue, not ours.”

“This incident has nothing to do with the army even if the army and police carried out the operation together,” the spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Samir, said. “This is the system of this country, and you don’t have the right to question it.”

an initial budget of $8 million to conduct "serious" research in the area of nuclear fusion.

The United States, the European Union, China, India, Russia, Japan and South Korea signed an accord in 2006 to build a $12.8 billion experimental fusion reactor at Cadarache, southern France, aimed at revolutionizing global energy use for future generations. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, members have said no single country can afford the immense investment needed to move the science forward.

accelerated a transformation of the C.I.A. into a paramilitary organization as much as a spying agency, which some critics worry could lower the threshold for future quasi-military operations. In Pakistan’s mountains, the agency had broadened its drone campaign beyond selective strikes against Qaeda leaders and now regularly obliterates suspected enemy compounds and logistics convoys, just as the military would grind down an enemy force. For its part, the Pentagon is becoming more like the C.I.A. Across the Middle East and elsewhere, Special Operations troops under secret “Execute Orders” have conducted spying missions that were once the preserve of civilian intelligence agencies. With code names like Eager Pawn and Indigo Spade, such programs typically operate with even less transparency and Congressional oversight than traditional covert actions by the C.I.A. And, as American counterterrorism operations spread beyond war zones into territory hostile to the military, private contractors have taken on a prominent role, raising concerns that the United States has outsourced some of its most important missions to a sometimes unaccountable private army.

“For the first time in our history, an entity has declared a covert war against us,” Mr. Smith said, referring to Al Qaeda. “And we are using similar elements of American power to respond to that covert war.” Some security experts draw parallels to the cold war, when the United States drew heavily on covert operations as it fought a series of proxy battles with the Soviet Union. And some of the central players of those days have returned to take on supporting roles in the shadow war. Michael G. Vickers, who helped run the C.I.A.’s campaign to funnel guns and money to the Afghanistan mujahedeen in the 1980s and was featured in the book and movie “Charlie Wilson’s War,” is now the top Pentagon official overseeing Special Operations troops around the globe. Duane R. Clarridge, a profane former C.I.A. officer who ran operations in Central America and was indicted in the Iran-contra scandal, turned up this year helping run a Pentagon-financed private spying operation in Pakistan.

A Navy ship offshore had fired the weapon in the attack, a cruise missile loaded with cluster bombs, according to a report by Amnesty International. Unlike conventional bombs, cluster bombs disperse small munitions, some of which do not immediately explode, increasing the likelihood of civilian causalities. The use of cluster munitions, later documented by Amnesty, was condemned by human rights groups.

disinterested

It will be held under the auspices of an American president who was publicly humiliated by Israel’s prime minister on the issue that is at the center of the Israel-Palestine dispute — Israel’s continuing seizure and colonization of Arab land

Peace is a pattern of stability acceptable to those with the capacity to disturb it by violence. It is almost impossible to impose. It cannot become a reality, still less be sustained, if those who must accept it are excluded from it. This reality directs our attention to who is not at this gathering in Washington and what must be done to remedy the problems these absences create.

The 26 reforms include putting the military under the control of civilian courts.  Women and trade union rights will also be extended.Under another provision, military leaders responsible for the 1980 coup would no longer have immunity from prosecution.

he was very much the product of an era - an era that helped him to loom large in a way that no leader from the South can in our time of pervasive US hegemony and the delegitimisation of resistance movements.

The international polarisation brought on by the Cold War both helped and hurt the nascent post-colonial states. On the one hand they became pawns in a merciless struggle between two superpowers. On the other, the Soviet Union became a source of political and military support and training as the national liberation movements found themselves confronting growing US influence.

While true that the withdrawal of the invading powers was partly a sign of the advent of US power and the end of French and British influence, Nasser's refusal to submit etched his name in the collective Arab memory in a way that contrasts sharply with the perceived subservience of current Arab heads of state.

Passage of these amendments, which had the endorsement of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive body, show that Turkey is constitutionally ready to join the European Union. Europe cannot keep concocting excuses.