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Why did the British government respond in the way it did to the Arab Spring? 
Some analyses have argued that Britain’s inconsistency demonstrates that Britain’s policies toward the Middle East in the wake of the uprisings in 2011 was hypocritical. Indeed while Britain condemned government violence in Syria, took military action in Libya it offered only muted comment on brutality in Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen.

Six years before the Arab Spring, a group of rural highlanders in Yemen called the Houthis rose up against an autocratic government and its foreign patrons to demand their rights.

The Arab League’s decision to establish a joint military force should be viewed, above all, as a major accomplishment for Saudi Arabian foreign policy — though Egypt’s president has also been advocating this. It comes with serious risks, however. It all starts with Riyadh. As Arab Spring uprisings appeared to sweep all before them in 2011, the Saudi regime seemed confident that it was immune. Even after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s swift fall from power. The Saudi leadership’s lack of assurance was betrayed, however, by a series of panicky steps.

The Centre for International and Defence Policy and Queen’s International Affairs Association hosted an expert panel discussion on radicalization and foreign fighters by the Mackenzie Institute on March 26th, 2015, at Queens University, Kingston Hall, 2nd Floor – ASUS Red Room

I’ve been in China for the last week. It’s always instructive to see how the world looks from the Middle Kingdom. Sometimes the best insights come from just reading the local papers. On March 25, The China Daily published an essay detailing how “Beijing authorities” had “launched inspection tours of kindergartens this week to ensure that children are not overburdened with schoolwork. Although Chinese, mathematics and English are supposed to be taught to primary school students, it is not uncommon to see pre-school-age children across China being forced to study these subjects.” The essay went on to explain why it wasn’t healthy to “begin preparing for the college entrance exam” in preschool.

On March 27, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Iran is trying to dominate the region, just weeks before his visit to Tehran. He argued that Iran’s expanding foothold in the Middle East is annoying Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies.

The Arab world’s poorest and most misunderstood country has been facing multiple crises for years: a shortage of oil and water, a rapidly growing population, hunger, dictatorship, corruption, an international terrorist presence and deep internal regional and political differences. Now escalating regional rivalry between neighbouring Saudi Arabia and Iran has sparked a wider war that threatens chaos and possible collapse.

War in the Middle East: Not exactly earth-shattering news in a region which always had more than its fair share of bloodshed.

It was a desperate and chilling scene in central Baghdad on Saturday, fathers and mothers holding up pictures of their missing sons, demanding answers and searching for their boys.

After years of wrangling, a nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers would not dramatically change Iran’s relationship with the United States–but it would make substantial changes: A deal that lifts sanctions, even gradually, would boost Iran’s economy, and Tehran would gain access to its substantial assets currently frozen in foreign banks. Iranian oil exports, almost halved by sanctions, would rise again.