Persona non grata: Potential Sisi Tunisia visit sparks anger

The potential visit of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to Tunisia has sparked controversy within domestic politics with many political figures expressing anger at President Beij Caid Essebsi’s apparent invite of his Egyptian counterpart. During meetings between figures from the Tunisian government and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry in January, an invite for Sisi to visit Tunis is said to have been extended – in order to discuss matters related to Libya’s ongoing civil crisis, and how to contain the regional fallout. However Sisi is viewed as a controversial figure in…

What will Trump’s North Africa policy look like?

“If Tunisia receives assistance, it will be given mainly to support Tunisia’s armed forces, security units.” Africa had been largely absent from the debates and speeches of the two US presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Also among their advisers on foreign policy, Donald Trump definitely has no political knowledge on the continent. This raises some concerns about the uncertainty of his policy on the North African region and the African continent. Over the past two decades, United States Africa policy has enjoyed strong two-party congressional support from both…

Libya: Why it went wrong, and what should be done

The current power vacuum in Libya came about because of the poor intervention of the West, which in the wake of the revolution of 2011 did not contribute enough towards state building, and as a result, it will take one or two generations for a modern state to emerge. This is one of the conclusions of Professor Dirk Vandewalle, a leading expert on the North African country who gave a lecture on Tuesday entitled “The Libyan crisis and its implications on the broader Arab spring”. The talk was organized by…

Life, Interrupted, For those covered by President Donald Trump’s travel order, there is potential heartache at every turn

Dr. Muhamad Alhaj Moustafa and Nabila Alhaffar wed in 2015 and planned to start a family this year. He was almost through his residency at Washington Hospital Center, and they both longed for children. On Jan. 27, Moustafa went to Dulles International Airport to pick up Alhaffar when she returned from a short trip to visit her mother, a breast cancer survivor, in Qatar. But due to the order issued by President Donald Trump earlier that day, she was denied entry and put on a plane back. For 10 days,…

The man who declared the ‘end of history’ fears for democracy’s future

Francis Fukuyama, an acclaimed American political philosopher, entered the global imagination at the end of the Cold War when he prophesied the “end of history” — a belief that, after the fall of communism, free-market liberal democracy had won out and would become the world’s “final form of human government.” Now, at a moment when liberal democracy seems to be in crisis across the West, Fukuyama, too, wonders about its future. “Twenty five years ago, I didn’t have a sense or a theory about how democracies can go backward,” said Fukuyama in a phone interview. “And…

Apocalypse, Not! Tales of Algeria’s impending implosion are, frankly, ridiculous

In a recent piece for The Spectator magazine, the British author and journalist Stephen Pollard presented readers with the following scenario. Under the headline “How Algeria Could Destroy the EU,” Pollard argued that when Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika died, “Algeria [would] probably implode.” Pollard then continued: “The Islamists who have been kept at bay by [Bouteflika’s] iron hand will exploit the vacuum. And then Europe could be overwhelmed by another great wave of refugees from North Africa.” He offered estimates, claiming that “10 to 15 million” Algerians would try to…

‘EU trade agreement would destabilise foundations of democracy in Tunisia’

Prominent experts from Germany and North Africa, including Tunisians, have warned European governments against imposing a new free trade agreement on Tunisia. Speaking at the launch of a new book on the topic, they claimed that the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) being discussed between the EU and Tunisia will undermine the foundations of Tunisia’s fledgling democracy. According to Tunisian economist Sami Al-Awadi, who presented the book “Development Through Free Trade: The Neo-liberal Agenda of the European Union in North African Countries” at the launch seminar organised in…

Libya’s crisis brought US folly in the Middle East to light, US newspaper says

Libya’s UN-backed government that was sealifted from Tunisia as well as former US-favored military man showed how US policy in Libya was anything but accurate, the American newspaper says. The unresolved crises in Libya that took gradual shape after the fall of the dictatorship of Muamar Gaddafi in 2011 have made the US folly in the Middle East so shiny, reported the US newspaper The National Interest last week. “US Mideast folly is best illustrated by the Iraq’s next-door neighbor, Libya. In that country, a civil war is deepening between an American-backed government…

‘Trumpism’ and the Future of International Politics

While international politics will undoubtedly change under Donald Trump’s reign as American president, the question is whether this will simply be a shift in balance of priorities or a radical break with the past. My sub-title, ‘the return of Realism’, doesn’t help here because many would argue that Realism never went away – to assume that Trump represents a radical break is to be excessively naïve about Barack Obama’s record as president. Certainly there is a danger in seeing Obama’s rule as a golden age of enlightened politics. For example…

EU interior ministers at loggerheads over distribution of migrants

The EU wants to cut off the maritime migrant route from Libya to Italy and is mulling over camps in Africa as a deterrent to would-be migrants. Interior ministers are conferring in Malta, as Bernd Riegert reports. The Maltese clearly like Europe. “Prelude to Te Deum”, the baroque fanfare written by Marc-Antoine Charpentier which has become known as the Eurovision anthem, blares every hour from loudspeakers across the square in front of the Grandmaster’s Palace. The music caught the EU’s Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos by surprise. On his arrival at…