Kingdom of Slaves (Photo: Rebel Against Injustice / Flickr)
by Sam Badger and Giorgio Cafiero
In the smallest Gulf kingdoms, upwards of 90 percent of residents are immigrant laborers. Many face unspeakable abuse
Since FIFA picked Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup, the tiny and uber-rich Gulf emirate has increasingly come under scrutiny for its failure to protect the human rights of its burgeoning foreign workforce.
Qatar's 1.8 million foreign workers -- who vastly outnumber the country's 300,000 native citizens -- are frequently deprived of wages, trapped into permanent debt, exposed to hazardous working conditions, and denied the right to unionize. Approximately 1,000 foreign workers have died in Qatar since 2012, according to Qatar's government. Independent human rights organizations claim that the figure is even higher.
Amid growing international calls to pull the Cup from Qatar, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has promised new reforms aimed at safeguarding workers' rights. It remains to be seen whether he is serious.
The large-scale use of foreign labor is widespread throughout the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, where traditional royal elites, businesses, and private individuals have accrued high levels of wealth despite the region's small domestic workforce. Bolstered by its natural gas exports, Qatar, for example, has the highest gross domestic product per capita of any country in the world. Through energy exports and financial services, the five other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates -- have also cultivated substantial financial reserves.
This wealth has enabled Gulf countries to invest heavily in massive new infrastructure works, but the region lacks a sufficient indigenous workforce to staff these projects. Additionally, many Gulf states provide robust social benefits for their native citizens, which decreases the incentive for natives to work in hazardous fields like construction.
Consequently, demand for migrant workers is substantial. The Gulf's construction boom has been fueled by a massive influx of workers, primarily from Asia, who also take jobs in domestic work and other low-wage fields. These foreign laborers are driven to the Gulf by poor economic prospects in their home countries and the perception that a steady income can be earned easily in the Gulf. But many arrive to find a waking nightmare.
Indentured Servitude
A key plank in the Gulf's foreign labor apparatus is called the kafala, or "sponsorship," system.
The system entails middlemen who travel to Southeast Asia and sell the right to work in the Gulf to prospective migrants. Once in debt to the middlemen, who "sponsor" the workers' right to travel to the Gulf, the laborers are expected to pay off their debt to the sponsor by working long hours -- often in the construction industry, where workers labor away in temperatures that can rise above 50 degrees Celsius, or 122 degrees Fahrenheit.
The physical toll on these workers is brutal. Between 2010 and 2012 alone, an estimated 700 Indian workers died in Qatar, and Nepali authorities say that hundreds of their own nationals have perished there as well. According to estimates by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), without reforms to the region's labor laws and proper enforcement, some 4,000 workers could die on construction projects related to the 2022 World Cup alone. The ITUC reports that workers are often denied access to water and shade, and that the shelter reserved for them is unsanitary and dehumanizing.
Yet because permission from their sponsor is required to seek a new employer, foreign laborers are often trapped in their jobs. This ensures that their paltry wages are used to pay off the debt incurred by their travel. Without citizenship or any political rights, and unable to exit the country -- their passports are frequently seized by authorities upon arrival -- these foreign workers are trapped in what can be only be described as virtual slavery or indentured servitude.
Foreign women employed as domestic workers for the GCC's wealthy residents are particularly vulnerable to exploitation. Secluded in private homes and typically denied the right to leave, they’re often trapped with employers who withhold pay and subject them to appalling episodes of physical assault and sexual violence.
And there is not much they can do about it, as this April 2014 report from Amnesty International makes clear:
Women [in Qatar] who have been physically or sexually abused face major obstacles to getting justice. None of the women researchers spoke to had seen their attackers prosecuted or convicted. In one horrific case, a domestic worker broke both her legs and fractured her spine when she fell from a window as she tried to escape a rape attack by her employer. Her attacker then proceeded to sexually assault her as she lay on the ground, injured and unable to move. Only afterwards did he call an ambulance.
When researchers interviewed her six months after the attack, she was still using a wheelchair. Despite her appalling injuries, the Public Prosecutor dismissed the case due to "lack of evidence" and she returned to the Philippines last year. Her employer has never been held accountable.
While there have been some reforms for domestic workers put on the table by GCC leaders, the language has largely been vague and thus far inconsequential.
A Regional Phenomenon
Recognizable patterns recur throughout the GCC.
In Saudi Arabia, the GCC's economic powerhouse, human rights organizations have documented widespread labor rights abuses that include long working hours, wage theft, and violence against domestic workers.
A particularly egregious case was the beheading of Rizana Nafeek, a 24-year old Sri Lankan woman working as a maid in Dawadmi, in January 2013. She was charged with strangling the four-month old baby of her employer to death. Evidence against Nafeek was limited to a "confession" that she signed following her arrest, which Nafeek said was coerced and undertaken without the assistance of a translator. Complicating matters, Nafeek's family said she had lied about her age on her passport application, meaning that in 2005 -- the year of the alleged offense -- she was only 17, and thus a minor under standards set by international law. She was tried without legal representation and subsequently executed over the fervent protests of the Sri Lankan government.
The UAE, where guest workers outnumber citizens nearly 8 to 1, has been taken to task for deporting workers who strike, housing workers in poor conditions, and stealing the passports of employees. Like FIFA’s embarrassment over the World Cup in Qatar, Western artistic, academic, and cultural institutions who have established operations in the UAE have been repeatedly embarrassed by the small emirate's treatment of its workers.
New York University (NYU), for example, has faced a public relations nightmare over the construction of a satellite campus in Abu Dhabi. Although the university's officials issued a "statement of labor values" after deciding to build the campus in 2009, the New York Times reported last May that workers on the NYU campus, who were employed by the BK Gulf Corporation, were paid as little as $272 per month, which doesn't go far in a country famous for its opulence. The paper reported that up to 15 workers were forced to share rooms scarcely bigger than 200 square feet. Eventually, the workers launched a strike which, on its second day, was met by a violent police crackdown. Hundreds were subsequently deported.
Similar problems have been reported in oil-rich Kuwait, where 2 million expatriate workers live next to 1.8 million natives, as well as Bahrain, where guest workers face the additional challenge of navigating political tensions since the failed uprising of 2011, when Shi'ite-led protests against Bahrain's ruling monarchy were quashed by troops from Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries.
Prospects for Reform
In response to widespread criticism over its World Cup preparations, Qatar's government has promised several reforms for guest workers, including changes in the kafala system that would enable foreign workers to exit the country or change jobs with less difficulty.
However, the ITUC and others are highly skeptical about what, if anything, the reforms will achieve. An ITUC spokesperson stated that foreign workers in Qatar still have "no freedom of association, no minimum wage, and no effective labor compliance system. None of the laws seem to apply to domestic workers." Moreover, migrant workers will still require exit visas to leave the country, giving the state the authority to decide if and when the workers can return to their countries of origin. That means that nearly 1.8 of Qatar's 2.1 million residents are trapped there, with virtually no legal protection, at the state's discretion.
Unfortunately, while such staggering figures highlight an imperative for reform, many human rights observers are pessimistic. The Qatari economy has become massively dependent on foreign workers, especially for construction. Without these workers, the Qatari “miracle” of breakneck urbanization, sky-high average incomes, and rapid modernization would have been impossible. As the number of migrant workers grows, the cost of providing them with even basic labor protections will only rise, further increasing the economic costs of real reform.
But if Gulf leaders prove indifferent to pressure from global civil society, economic factors might move them to act. As the GCC makes an economic pivot toward Asia, demands from source countries could force them to improve conditions for migrant laborers.
For example, earlier this year, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia inked an agreement to grant Indonesian workers in the kingdom greater rights, including the right to keep their passports, communicate with family members, get paid on a monthly basis, and have time off. This agreement followed Indonesia's August 2011 ban on sending migrant workers to Saudi Arabia, where reports of horrific abuse of Indonesian workers had circulated for years. While Human Rights Watch assessed that these new regulations amounted only to "slow moves in the right direction," the pressure from Jakarta underscored the leverage that Asian governments can wield over the GCC states that rely on their migrant laborers.
But change won't come easily. Only a few months ago, GCC states unanimously refused to endorse a protocol by the International Labor Organization (ILO) for the improvement of labor standards.
The plight of foreign laborers in the Gulf underscores a dark underside to the modern, glossy exterior the GCC states like to showcase to the world. In the absence of a powerful labor movement in the Gulf, the GCC's millions of suffering foreign laborers will have to hope that their home countries can protect them abroad, even if they couldn't provide jobs at home.
More WORLD NEWS ...
- Nations and Borders are Always Messy
- Comparing Atrocities
- Religious Violence: What We Get Wrong
- Crying 'Lone Wolf'
- Partnering against Human Trafficking
- Muslim Cartoonist Draws Lessons from the Charlie Hebdo Massacre
- Refereeing a Race to the Bottom
- How Liberal Democracy Promotes Inequality
- The Dance of Superpowers
- The Big Chill: Tensions in the Arctic
- The Games of Our Lives
- Kissinger on World Order
- The War on Terrorism: The Way Forward
- World War I Transformed the World
- The Instrumentalisation of History
- Asymmetry Is Strategy
- Challengers to the Global Status Quo
- The Plague
- The Cold War Never Ended
- Understanding 'On War'
- Rethinking Global Drug Policy
- Police Becoming More Like Soldiers
- What was D-Day?
- First Redistribute Vatican Wealth
- Modern World Still Premodern in Many Ways
- Russia: A Real Risk of War
- From Democracy to Veto-cracy: Destabilizing World Politics
- The New Tribalism and the Decline of The Nation-State
- The Myth of the Strong Leader
- Climate Change and Interstate Conflict
- International Money Is International Politics
- The New Politics of International Currencies
- MH370: The Overkill News Network
- The Limits of Power in the Nuclear Age
- 'The Grapes of Wrath' Resonates 75 Years Later
- Why This Cold War Reboot is Different
- Getting the Poorest 4 Billion Online
- An Internet Governance Model for the 21st Century
- Companies Crunching Big Data Winning Competitive Advantage
- Decisive Year in the Battle to Maintain Freedom of the Web
- The Limits of Strategic Thinking
- Bill Gates Almost Right on World Poverty
- The News Should Aim to Improve Our Lives
- The Audacity of a Pope
- Pope Francis Continues to Afflict the Comfortable
- Canvassing for 'None of the Above'
- Exceptionally Mediocre on a Global Scale
- The Growing Importance of the Arctic Council
- Ending War for All Children Everywhere
- The Path of Hubris and War
- The Lever of Social Action
- Tax Havens Under Attack
- How to Help The Poor in a Rich Man's World
- Bitcoin
- Global Domination and Databases
- Hague Tribunal Controversy Hints at US-Israeli Aims
- Pope Francis' First 100 Days Give Signs of Hope
- Sci-Fi Worthy of Malthus
- Should the United States Continue to be the Indispensable Nation?
- Nigeria: Rebuilding After Boko Haram
- Peace Talks Stall in South Sudan
- Putting Boko Haram in Context
- Congo: Two Visions for Development
- Skating on Thin Ice, Tunisia Chooses a New President
- South Sudan: Action Needed Now to Prevent Another Year of Devastation
- Poverty: The Petri Dish That Grows Ebola
- Ebola's Racial Disparity
- Africa's Place on World Stage
- Ebola & Economic Inequality
- Women Bearing Brunt of Ebola
- Tunisia's Upcoming Elections
- Militarizing the Ebola Crisis
- What Role for UN in Tackling Ebola?
- Ebola Dwarfed by Malaria & HIV/AIDS
- Africa's Islamic State?
- Cutting Corners in South Sudan
- A Forgotten Crisis at the Heart of Africa
- Sudan: Forced Faith is Not Faith
- Moral Compass Points Toward Retribution in Nigeria
- Nigeria: Extremist Islam Scared of Little Girls
- What We Can Do for the Kidnapped Nigerian Girls
- Nigeria's Stolen Girls and Clueless Leaders
- South Africa Takes Stock Ahead of Elections
- South Africa: ANC and Zuma Enjoy Wide Support Despite Discontent
- 'Crimes Against Humanity' in South Sudan
- UN Criticizes South Sudan Leaders Over Famine Response
- African Union Hopeful on Resolving South Sudan Crisis
- Outrage As Nigerian Schoolgirls Reportedly Sold As Wives
- Getting the Poorest 4 Billion Online
- Cameroon Says No Terrorists Training on its Territory
- East African Nations Ready to Send Stabilization Force to South Sudan
- Africa's Supposed Failure to Achieve Millennium Development Goals
- Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta on Restoring Democracy to Guinea-Bissau
- Africa: Diaspora's Remittances are Relative Advantage
- Nigeria's Bright and Young Mean Business
- Mangos, Not Mining, the Future of Guinea
- Guinea: How to Stamp Out Corruption in the Mining Sector
- West Africa's Vast Marine Wealth Being Depleted
- Nigeria's Economy About to Achieve Global Status
- Nigeria: Progress and Crisis Will March Hand in Hand
- Superpowers Making Strategic Moves in Africa
- Mandela's Gift: A Model of Leadership
- Two Mandelas
- Steve Biko: Father of Black Consciousness
- International Justice Should Prosecute Beyond the Bounds of Africa
- Africa: The Growing Continent
- Mali: After the War, The Hard Part
- Nigeria's Squandered Opportunity
- Victims of Forgotten War Need the World's Attention
- China Works to Improve Image in Africa
- Is Japan's Prime Minister the Next Putin?
- Cambodia's Remarkable Journey
- India: Anti-Muslim Rhetoric Flares Up
- China Pulls Pollution Documentary
- India: Worshippers in Cremation Ritual
- Japan: World's Oldest Celebrates 117th Birthday
- Japan: Cats Overrun Island
- Mass Wedding in South Korea
- South Korea: Ending International Adoptions
- The New Face of Chinese Repression
- China's Economic Slowdown and the Necessity of Reform
- China's Crazy Plan to Mine the Moon
- The Good Life of the Newly Rich in China
- North Korea's History of Broken Nuclear Promises
- North Korea In Numbers
- Hong Kong: Pragmatism vs Liberalism
- Great Gamble on the Mekong
- Indonesia's Seaward Shift
- The New Nuance in Chinese Diplomacy
- China Now Top Economy
- Nuclear War Threshold Keeps Dropping
- China's Interest in Defeating ISIL
- Japan Is Antagonizing Everyone
- China and The United States: The Dance of Superpowers
- South Korea: The Politics of Patience
- Fishing for Peace in Korea
- Hong Kong is not Tiananmen
- Why China Won't Talk to Hong Kong's Protesters
- Hong Kong: The Future of People Power?
- Can China Pacify Its Minorities?
- Pragmatism Challenges Superpower Status
- A Capitalist in North Korea
- Japan Still Hobbled by Racism and Militarism
- The Tao of North Korea
- Political Turmoil and the Pakistani Army
- The Indian Jihadist Movement: Evolution and Dynamics
- India's New Leader Could Have Global Impact
- Third Obama Disappointment Seems Imminent
- United States and China Go Private with the Cold War
- Trans-Pacific Partnership Bad Deal for America
- Mao's Little Red Book: China's Spiritual Atom Bomb
- The Rise of China and Its Impact on International Economic Governance
- Examining China's Strategic Interests in Latin America
- Crusade Against Cronyism Shaking Up India's Political Landscape
- Benazir Bhutto's Assassination: The Case Goes Cold
- Is China Copying the Old Imperial Japan?
- Learning The Wrong Lessons from the Three Gorges Dam
- In India Book Withdrawal Sparks Criticism
- Japan's Sun is Rising Again
- Why North Korea Today is Not East Germany 1989
- Afghanistan: Americans Show More Signs of War Fatigue
- Learning to Look on the Bright Side Chinese Style
- India: A Sacrifice That Went Unrecognized
- China's Space Program Tries to Catch Up
- India's Neglected Generation
- Can Taiwan Pull China Toward Democracy?
- America's Pivot to Asia a Misguided One
- China's Low-Profile Imperialism
- Dicing with Death Penalties in Indonesia
- Afghanistan: Talking to the Taliban
- A Costly Effort in Afghanistan
- Responsibility for Asian Sweatshop Safety Lies with Us, Too
- Asian Sweatshops: A Floor of Decency
- China and North Korea: A Tangled Partnership
- North Korea Following a Well-Worn Pattern
- Europe & Islam: The Way Forward
- Putin & the Irony of Helsinki
- Russia's Defense Industry
- Turning the European Debt Myth Upside-Down
- French Extremists Find Platform in Terrorist Propaganda
- How Counterterrorism Expert Views Paris Attacks
- Charlie Hebdo, Islamophobia and the Freedom of Expression
- Does The Quran Forbid Images Of The Prophet Muhammad?
- Cartoonists' Solidarity For Charlie Hebdo
- Charlie Hebdo Attack Vigils Held Around the World
- France Falls Silent for Victims
- France's Deadly Attack Will Not Be the Last
- How Will Europe Handle the Rise in Terrorist Attacks?
- French Hold 'Je Suis Charlie' Vigil
- Attack Fails to Silence Paris
- Paris Attack: Marginalized Islamic Society Partly to Blame?
- Famed Cartoonists Among Dead at Charlie Hebdo
- Charlie Hebdo and Islam: The History of Its Satire
- Hungary's Irregular Border Crossings
- Whither Ukraine's Revolution?
- Before Solidarity, There Was the Polish Church
- Public and Private in Poland
- Greece, Cyprus Determined to Thwart ISIL
- Greeks Prepare for Elections
- Rebooting EU Foreign Policy
- NATO: Rebellion in the Ranks?
- The Bildt-Sikorski Effect
- Germany's Islamic State Problem
- Conflict Resolution and German Reunification
- Polish Activists on the Cutting Edge
- The Strange Non-Death of Polish Neoliberalism
- Poland: Land of Junk Contracts
- Scotland, Nationalism, and Freedom
- Greece: The Story of OXI Day
- How Hard Times Are Healing Bosnia
- NATO, Russia and Ukraine: Roulette or Reset?
- How Putin Could Defeat NATO With Nukes
- The Lesson of Russia's Serial Treaty Violations
- Ukraine: Red Meat for the NATO Alliance
- Outcome of the European Parliament Elections
- The Tea Party Lives -- in Europe
- Europe: The Social Immune System
- Ukraine: The War to End All Wars
- What Ukraine Really Needs
- The Rich List and The West's Culture of Envy
- What do the Putins of the World Want?
- Putin's Well-Worn Fascist Lies
- How the Russian Intelligence Mind-Set Differs From America's
- The Right Rises Again in Europe
- Germany's Elite Falling Out of Love with EU
- Euroskepticism and Political Fragmentation in the EU
- Ukraine: Not Time to Turn Virtual War into Real One
- Outcome of the French Municipal Elections
- Why This Cold War Reboot is Different
- Next Step in Ukraine Crisis is Unknown
- Ukraine and Russia have Created an International Disorder
- Reforms Push Greece to Economic Recovery
- Superpower Europe or Disintegration?
- Obama Clings to Diplomacy to Resolve Ukraine Crisis
- Obama's Diplomatic Dance with Putin is a Sad Sock Hop
- Legacy Of France's Colonial History Being Played Out in Paris Suburbs
- Russia: Not Your Father's Cold War
- Dangerous Mischief-Making in Ukraine
- Russia: What Do United States and the West Now Want?
- How to Rein in Putin
- Export Opportunity to Ukraine, Not Ukrainian Nanny State
- Obama Rules Out Military Solution on Ukraine
- Hitler Analogy Overstates Situation in Ukraine
- Why The West Shouldn't Abandon Russia's Reluctant 'Little Brother'
- The Year of the Russians
- Ukraine Only Promises Trouble for Russia
- Venice: La Serenissima Turns the Tide
- We Cannot Afford to Forget Bosnia
- Serbia Focuses on EU and Reforms
- Turkey & Armenia: Are Erdogan's Condolences a Turning Point?
- Spain's Unemployment Rate Should Improve
- The West Needs Russia's Help More than it Realizes
- Obama's Cool-headedness is Diplomacy, Not Appeasement
- Ukraine and the 'Little Cold War'
- Obama in Denial on Russia
- Ukraine: Beautiful Kiev has been Brutalized
- The Untold Story of the Ukrainian Revolution
- The Dark Side of the Ukraine Revolt
- Ukrainian Uprising is a Rebellion, Not a Revolution
- Why Greeks are Leaving Athens for the Good Life
- Greece to Develop Former Athens Airport Site
- Greece Hopes to Rejuvenate Privatization Effort
- What Happens Now in Ukraine?
- Switzerland and the Growing Resistance in Western Europe
- Dispute of Ukraine's Relationship with Russia Rages On
- Demystifying the Media Caricatures of Pussy Riot
- Coverage of Hollande Displays Media's Misplaced Priorities
- Hollande-Trierweiler Split and The Question of Marriage
- Postwar Era Has Ended, But Not Appetite For War
- A Flickering Flame of Faith in Sochi's Oldest Orthodox Church
- Ireland: From WWI Conflict to Respect
- Russia After Putin: Inherent Leadership Struggles
- Can the Violence in Honduras Be Stopped?
- Ecuador: All You Need Is Love and Oil?
- Argentina's Tangled Web
- Human Rights Violations in Brazil
- Paraguay's Legacy of Violence
- Nicaragua Canal: Critics Line Up
- Why Obama and Congress Should Go Further With Cuba
- U.S. Cuban Relations Reimagined
- Obama Corrects a Historic Mistake on Cuba
- Brazil's Presidential Elections
- Brazil's Struggle with Gang-Run Slums
- Ebola: Is Cuba Caring too Much?
- The Mass Shooting in Mexico
- No Happy Ending to the Child Refugee Crisis
- The Decline of American Influence
- More Than a Mexican Problem
- Mexico's Hidden Epidemic
- Venezuela Progresses in Battle Against Contraband
- The Challenges of Panama's President
- Low Point of US - Cuba Policy
- Cuba's Currency Conversion
- Colombia's Challenger Vows Hard Line on Venezuela
- Pope Francis Carrying Out Silent Diplomacy in Argentina
- Many Expect Post-Kirchner Economic Boom in Argentina
- In Cuba, Technology May Beat Censorship
- Chile's Success Story May Be at Risk
- The Future of Latin America's 'Growth Engine'
- Santos May Oversell Colombia Peace Deal
- Uruguay Wrong About Not Taxing Pot
- Latin America's Growing Press Freedom Troubles
- Believers in U.S. Decline Will Be Disappointed
- Vargas Llosa Deserves Nobel for Courage
- Latin America's Other Big Internet Problem
- Costa Rica's New Leader Says He's a 'Moderate' Leftist
- Latin America's Economic Forecasts May Be Too Rosy
- Cuban Twitter Project was a Tweet in the Dark
- Venezuela's Best 'Anti-Coup' Medicine - Dialogue
- Latin American Inventors Thrive in United States
- Who's Winning, Who's Losing Innovation Race
- Russian Bases in the Americas: A Bluff?
- Colombia's Santos Re-election Won't Be Easy
- Bachelet's Chile Moving Closer to Venezuela?
- OAS Vote for Venezuela and Maduro May be Short-Lived
- Mexico's New Friend: Castro's Cuba
- Getting the Poorest 4 Billion Online
- Examining China's Strategic Interests in Latin America
- Argentina Forced By Ailing Economy To Change Populist Policies
- Trying 'El Chapo': Let's Let Mexico Handle This
- What's Wrong About 'El Chapo's' Capture
- Venezuela's Maduro Faces Hard Choices
- Should U.S. Cut Venezuelan Oil Imports?
- 10 Questions for Venezuela's President
- Venezuela Protests: The View from West Caracas
- United States Shouldn't Rescue Socialist Venezuela
- Chile: President Pinera Leaves Office on a High Note
- Cuba Poll Won't Change U.S. Policy
- Venezuela's Biggest Enemy: Hyperinflation
- Argentina has a lot in Common with Justin Bieber
- Summit in Cuba Mostly Political Tourism
- South America May Not Head Zimbabwe's Way
- Latin America Will Do Well, But Not Great, in 2014
- Latin America's Low Philanthropy Ratings
- Miss Venezuela's Murder Reveals Culture of Violence
- Zapatista Rebellion Failed to Help Mexico's Impoverished
- Mexico: Will Los Zetas Unravel Without Their Leader?
- Understanding Pena Nieto's Approach to the Cartels
- The Decline of the Colorado River
- The Plight of Latin America's Teachers
- Prospects for a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in the Middle East
- Stephen Walt's Call to Adopt a Containment Policy Toward the Islamic State
- Kids Paying the Price for Yemen's War
- Turkey's AKP Doomed by Poverty, Growing Inequality and Its War on Trade Unions
- Multiculturalism Will Save Turkey
- Saudi Arabia Fixated on Iran When Sunni Extremists Are Real Threat
- The Dark Plot to Tip the Scales
- Deconstructing the Mainstream Narrative About the Saudi War on Yemen
- Syrian President Assad Using Islamic State to Defeat Other Rebel Factions
- The Islamic State Doesn't Want True Muslims
- Obama's Strategy in Iraq: Escalation
- Iraqi Army Overmatched Against Islamic State Fighters
- Islamic State May Not Be Worth a Strategy
- The Islamic State Needs to Be Stopped, But With Imagination, Not Intervention
- Seizures of Ramadi and Palmyra Suggest Islamic State, Despite Setbacks, Still on a Roll
- Bashar al-Assad: The Problem with Young Dictators
- A Fateful Triangle: the United States, Iran, and Saudi Arabia in Yemen
- The Islamic State's Crimes Against Islam
- DC's Dictator Summit
- Yemen's War Is Redrawing the Middle East's Fault Lines
- Identifying the West's Flaws in Logic When Discussing Islam
- The Islamic State's Strange Co-dependency With Syrian President Assad
- Chlorine: Assad's Double-Edged Sword
- Number of Atheists in the Arab World Rivals the West
- US-Saudi-Iran Rapprochement Needed Before Peace in Syria Can Happen
- How the U.S. Contributed to Yemen's Crisis
- Is Al Qaeda Waxing or Waning?
- Diplomacy Is the Only Plausible Solution to Syria and Yemen
- Will Israel 'Bounce the Rubble' in Gaza?
- Yemen and the Congress of Reaction
- Autocrats United Against Yemen
- The Clash of Civil Persuasions
- The Great Convergence with Iran
- Iran Deal: A Game-Changer for the Middle East
- Another Illegal War in the Middle East
- Jim Crow in the Holy Land
- Netanyahu's Victory Is Just as Bad as It Looks
- Why America Lacks Credibility in the Middle East
- America's Hydra Problem in the Middle East
- The Islamic State and Turkey's 'Precious Loneliness'
- Reviving the North Korea-Iran Axis?
- Authoritarian Symps
- Celebrating Wars & Destruction
- Healing or Harming? The Provision of Health Care by Peacekeepers
- Two-Track War Against ISIL
- The Need for a New Syrian Narrative
- Why ISIS Exists
- Why Are Women Joining the Islamic State?
- When Bibi Came to Town
- The Geopolitics of Speeches
- 10 Reasons I'm Praying for AIPAC's Decline
- Understanding Turkey's Tilt
- Some Good News from the Middle East
- ISIS Unites the World
- An Eritrean in Israel
- Global Warming Triggered Syria War
- Is Turkey Holding Up a Resolution in Syria?
- Does Syria See the U.S. as an Ally?
- Nationalism under Pressure: Islamic State, Iraq and Kurdistan
- Syria's Future and the War against ISIS
- The Syrian Labyrinth
- So, Islamic State, You Want to Rule a Caliphate
- Wanna-Be's Doing Islamic State's Bidding
- Is ISIS Capable of Nuclear Terrorism?
- Khomeini Drew the Line at Nukes
- Israel's Lack of Interest
- Recognizing Palestine
- Gaza: Bipartisan War on Human Rights
- Iraq Long Awash in Carnage
- Turkey's Dealings With ISIL
- In What World Are the Kurds as Dangerous as the Islamic State?
- Iran: Netanyahu UN Speech Baseless
- Without Iran, Coalition to Confront ISIS is Doomed
- Treat ISIS Like an Onion
- Turkey & Israel: There and Back Again
- Kingdom of Slaves
- Six Steps Short of War to Beat ISIS
- How the U.S. Enabled ISIS
- Intra-Jewish Discrimination in Israel
- Israel's Nuclear Weapons Program
- Restricting Egypt's Public Space
- Obama Could Spare Israel Terrible Outcome
- John Kerry's Folly in the Middle East
- Israel Projects Its Own Nuclear Behavior on to Iran
- New Books: Spotlight on the Middle East
- Getting the Poorest 4 Billion Online
- Overcoming the 'Manufactured Crisis' with Iran
- Certainties That Underpin Saudi Arabia Need Reappraisal
- Did Nonviolence Fail in Egypt?
- American Departure Will Leave Behind Carnage and Ruin
- Syria: The People Have Lost Their Voice
- Zbigniew Brzezinski on How to Avoid a New Middle East Explosion
- Why Are Governments Not Looking After Themselves?
- Isolationist Instincts of Americans are Sound Ones
- Obama Firm: No Boots on the Ground in Iraq
- Syrian Refugee Plan Poses Security Risks
- Egypt: How the Brotherhood Failed
- Iranian Nuclear Deal: Hardliners Despair, Pragmatists Rejoice
- Iran: Seeing Past 'Death to America'
- Strange Bedfellows: Israel and Arabs United in Opposition to Iran
- Egypt: The First Nation Ever to Revolt Against Democracy?
- Israel-Palestine: Enough Negotiations Already!
- What Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Israel Have in Common
- In a Changing Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia Cling Together
- Running Off to War
- Islamic Extremists Undermine Peace Prospects in Syria
- Rays of Hope in Egypt
- Syrian Dead End
- Egypt: The Opposition's Next Steps
- Egypt: Persistent Issues Undermine Stability
- The Next Phase of the Arab Spring
- The Foreign Policy Impact of Iran's Presidential Election
- Turkey's Violent Protests in Context
- Then What in Syria?
- The Monotonous Middle East
- Yes, Black America Fears the Police
- New Boston Bombing Video
- Obama's Last National Security Strategy
- What We Lose with a Privatized Postal Service
- Wal-Mart Does Something Right
- Guantanamo Bay's Place in U.S. Strategy
- Obama Corrects a Historic Mistake on Cuba
- Why Obama and Congress Should Go Further With Cuba
- U.S. Cuban Relations Reimagined
- China and The United States
- Tensions in the Arctic
- Ebola and Moral Panic
- What West Africa Can Teach the U.S. About Ebola
- Everything Wrong with Obama's War on ISIS
- Maya Angelou was Deeper than a Pithy Quote
- Give Killers Coverage, Not A Soapbox
- Our Culture Behind Wisconsin Girls' Stabbing Case
- Are Hispanics in Danger of Becoming White?
- Obama Outlines the Limits of Foreign Intervention
- Just Don't Call It 'Reparations'
- Small Men with Ugly Thoughts, Expressed Aloud
- It's Time to Show Our Veterans Some Love
- Justice for All, Except Those Too Big to Jail
- On the 9/11 Memorial and Museum
- Policing Thought Crime
- Turmoil and Intimations of Gender Bias at The Gray Lady
- Jayson Blair and All The Lies Not Fit to Print
- Mental Illness and Guns have Created a National Epidemic
- Army of One
- Mass Killers Hold Culture and Country Hostage
- Florida Governor Takes Deep Dive into Climate Change
- Charlie Christ Flip-Flop is a Bad Idea
- Botched Execution Should Be Death Knell of Capital Punishment
- Cruel and Unusual Ways of Execution
- Bring Back Firing Squads? We Do Worse
- Clayton Lockett: A Just Execution, Regardless
- Supreme Court Rules 5-4 on Public Prayer
- Supreme Court Rules on Public Prayer -- But Should It?
- John Kerry Warns of Excessive Isolationism
- Obama's Foreign Policy Nonexistent
- On Race: Meet Dumb and Dumberer
- Believers in U.S. Decline Will Be Disappointed
- A Nation Divided with Liberty and Justice for Some
- Can Ethnic Hate Be a Mental Illness?
- Pulitzer Committee Makes Stand for Free Press, Accountable Government
- NRA Members Need To Step Up on Ending Gun Violence
- Military Chief's Plea: Put Returning Soldiers to Work
- Home from War, Our Soldiers Continue to Die
- Better Gun Laws Needed to Protect Mentally Ill and Rest of Us
- Guns: Monsters in Our Midst
- The Knowing Donald Rumsfeld
- United States Never Reaped Bonus of Post-Cold War World
- America's Quiver of Outrage is Empty
- U.S. Foreign Assistance: More Guns than Butter
- Infrastructure Terrorist Attacks Cause for Concern
- Obama's Disposition: Combine Threats with Accommodation
- The Good and the Bad of North America Summit
- Sincerest Sympathy to the Filthy Rich
- Asphyxiating Education
- Welcome to Florida, Where the NRA Rules and We Proudly Stand Our Ground
- Trigger Happy in Florida: The Gunshine State
- If It Doesn't Work, It Doesn't Work. Period
- The Fourth Amendment is Going, Going ...
- Americans Shunning the 'Evil Weed' and Embracing Another
- Nuclear Safety Issue Lingers
- Robert Gates Reflections Flawed on America's Last 40 Years of War
- Detroit's Decline Did Not Have to Happen
- Triumph of the Vulgarians
- Keeping the NSA in Perspective
- There Ought to Be a Better Law
- Fracking: A Deadly Power Surge
- A More Perfect Union
- Joseph Nye: America's Challenge to Wield Smart Power
More WORLD NEWS ...