The State Department's International Religious Freedom in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor awarded a $200,000 grant to the Middle East Media Research Institute for their project dedicated to documenting anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and glorification in the Middle East.  Additionally, the grant will allow for the expansion of MEMRI's ability to monitor the media, translate material into various language, as well as providing an analysis on the topic. ...

Ambassador Robert Ford interviewed with ABC's Christiane Amanpour on August 4 and discussed the increasingly violent situation in Syria.  (See video here). In the interview, Ford emphasized the U.S. government's position that "Assad and his government will be left in the past."  Additionally, he called the violence in the city of Hama "grotesque and abhorrent."  Ford also emphasized that the U.S. should "try to ratchet up the pressure" through new sanctions ...

The U.S. State Department announced today a new program "Ask Alan" that engages Iranians through a Persian language social media brand, USAdarFarsi, which is active on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter.  The State Department's Persian Language Spokesman, Alan Eyre will provide answers in Farsi to questions from fans in 5-7 minute long videos.  The topic for August is visas. However, Iran continues it's harsh treatment against political prisoners as Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari ...

Christopher Hitchens recounts being witness to some of the most dramatic political transitions of the past several decades and concludes that Egypt and the Arab world generally lack the conditions necessary to complete a revolution. He writes that none of the Arab movements possess unifying leaders, proto-structures or visions for government or even the experience with civil society that helped other countries obtain democracy. The piece dates itself to early ...

Steven Cook, of the Council on Foreign Relations, heavily criticized Monday's Washington Post article on U.S. funding to Syrian opposition figures and groups.  He says that the tone of the article makes U.S. intentions and actions regarding democracy promotion sound "sinister" despite USAID and State Department programs like MEPI (Middle East Partnership Initiative) having broad, public bi-partisan support.  Cook states: "The Post turned something for which Americans should rightly be ...

Previously undisclosed Wikileaks cables say that the U.S. State Department has been funding Syrian opposition groups and related projects since 2006. The cables show that the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based group of Syrian exiles and liberal Islamists, received $6 million from the U.S. The movement is affiliated with a satellite television network, Barada TV. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said he could not speak to the content of ...

American commentators have criticized the Obama administration's "tepid" response to violence in Syria, as well as Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referring to Assad as a "reformer."   In contrast, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), ranking member of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said "Assad is not a reformer. Anyone who thinks so is at best fooling ...

Michele Penner Angrist addressed the future of democracy in Tunisia stating, "Ben Ali suffocated the political arena to such a degree that there is no force capable of governing Tunisia other than the ruling party and the military." Angrist also discussed the implications of the lack of US involvement in Tunisia's unrest and the future of other Arab regimes, "Were the regimes in Egypt or Jordan on the line, Western support for ...

In an interview with David Lepeska in the Columbia Journalism Review, Egyptian journalist Ibrahim Eissa notes that in an effort to control  Al Dostor, the government has filed lawsuits, imprisoned Eissa, and threatened the paper’s publishers with millions of pounds in taxes. After finally taking over the paper, Al Dostor is now “a pet newspaper.” He states that although there was a period of increasing media freedom in Egypt during ...

In a new article in the Foreign Service Journal,  Robert McMahon explores the ongoing efforts of American broadcasters to  reach Iranians, even as the regime expands pressure on independent media. Voice of America’s Persian News Network satellite TV station and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) Radio Farda--two broadcasters funded by Congress--have been expanding their reach into social media. "The regime denounces these media efforts as a 'soft war' waged by outside ...

Last night, President Barack Obama gave a speech from the Oval Office that declared the end of combat operations in Iraq (transcript). Reactions to the speech were varied. At Commentary, Jennifer Rubin describes the President's reiteration of the deadline for withdrawal in Afghanistan and his remarks on the economy as, "...unhelpful, ungracious, and downright inaccurate...", while Nick Gillespie at Reason laments that, "Politics is a marathon game of blaming the guy ...