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The phenomenon of shale oil has returned to the forefront of politics. Unconventional oil and gas have been known to exist for some time and are available in large quantities. But the high cost of production has prevented their commercial extraction in the past. The rise of the price of oil since early 2001, however, has reignited interest. This paper examines this new interest and its impact on the price of oil in international markets. It also looks at the possible repercussions that could emerge in the long run among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States on the economic, political and geostrategic levels. The oil shale resources available globally could enable this resource to become one of the most important unconventional fuel sources in the world. In addition to its ubiquitous presence in North America, it is available in large quantities in Brazil, historic Palestine, Jordan, Indonesia, China, Australia, Estonia, France, Spain, Sweden, Britain, and South Africa. If these countries, which include major industrial nations and others on their way to become significant industrial forces, were to begin extracting their oil, all the economic, political and geostrategic calculations that have been based on conventional fuel will have to be reconsidered.

This article discusses the failure of the Iraqi political elites to resolve the key problems brought about by the occupation of Iraq in April 2003, even after the declaration of the Iraqi constitution in 2005. The article holds that the new constitution could not be implemented and was unsustainable for purely internal reasons. It was unable to provide answers to the new questions and facts, and the new tactical alternatives it created to produce hybrid regimes from 2006 were incapable of overcoming the structural crisis of the regime. This was especially the case since the attempts described as consensual, aimed to preserve the delicate political situation on the basis of the existing balance of power—rather than on the basis of a governing frame of reference accepted by all—did not transform into binding political conventions for the political groupings representative of the ethnic and religious components of Iraq, and at a minimum did not transform into agreements respected by all sides.

The spark of Arab protests reached Morocco by means of the February 20 movement. The protests would probably have developed further were it not for the pre-emptive maneuver of the king in proposing constitutional amendments and in quickly passing legislation. Although the Justice and Development Party (PJD) did not back the movement, it was the main beneficiary of it, in that it won the elections with unprecedented support that enabled it to lead the government in prime political and constitutional conditions under the slogan "reform with continuity". While it might be premature to judge whether the experience has been a success or a failure, given that the PJD government is still in its early days, the preliminary assessment makes clear that the PJD has not, until now, pushed to bring about basic institutional reforms that would drive progress in various sectors. It seems that the logic of continuity has outweighed the logic of reform, or has restricted reforms as far as possible. The government may continue despite its limited achievements, but if matters remain as they are, the Islamist-oriented PJD will lose a lot of the goodwill it has gained, just as happened with other experiences of political parties in Morocco.

Israel’s nuclear ambiguity is a policy formulated in the 1960s, and one that Israel has consistently applied until today. The paper examines the roots of this policy and the internal and external factors that contributed to its formulation. In this context it follows the influence of the United States by illustrating the development of contacts and negotiations between the US and Israel concerning the Israeli nuclear program, and the understandings between the two states during the 1960s, culminating in the agreement between Golda Meir and Nixon in 1969 over Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons. The study also follows the debates and discussions between Israeli academics and experts over this policy since the 1980s. Finally, the paper also reviews Israel’s preparation for a second strike and analyzes the aims of Israel’s nuclear policy.

This study reviews the various Syrian military groups currently active against the Syrian regime, and discusses the circumstances that led to their formation as well as their intellectual and political orientations, links, and funders. The study sees that in general these groups can be divided into two main currents: one with a secular orientation and one with an Islamist orientation. It argues that these military groups were formed spontaneously, in response to the violence of the regime, rather than as an intentional political act. In addition, uneducated sectors were confronted with the task of forming most of the leaderships of these military groups and actually leading them, which helped make their visions lack clarity. This study is a contribution toward filling the gap in Arab academic research on armed Syrian opposition forces.

Book Title: De quoi la Palestine est-elle le nom? [Translated into Arabic]

The recently announced discovery of gas off the coast of Palestine will turn Israel from an importer of gas into a producer or even an exporter. This study casts light on the likely geopolitical implications of these discoveries for Israel, for the Middle East, and for the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In light of a comprehensive overview of the regional energy map, the study considers the main regional implications of these discoveries, including economic and financial effects for Israel, its strategic position in the region, the effect on the dispute between Lebanon and Israel over maritime borders, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Another significant effect concerns the dispute between Turkey and Cyprus which has led to economic, political, and military rapprochement between Israel, Cyprus, and Greece in recent years, and has the potential to develop into a new strategic axis between those three states. The study also deals with the American-NATO dimension and the efforts of the United States to dampen down the crisis in the region. There is also a Russian dimension reflected in the concern of Russian energy companies with these discoveries and their efforts to participate in exploiting them. In conclusion, the paper puts forward a vision of the future around the importance of Arab coordination to confront the future challenges arising from these discoveries for the Arab region and for the Arab-Israeli conflict.

​This article discusses relations between Sudan and Iran against the background of the many Israeli air strikes against Sudan, and asks whether the ruling regime in Sudan favors Iran over the Arab states when it comes to dealing with its political and security concerns, or whether Sudan sees no issue in playing both sides. It also examines the dreams of Islamic leadership and the transnational revolutionary tendency espoused by Hassan al-Turabi, and the effect of this among his disciples in terms of their view of and links with Iran. The study also takes Iranian support for Islamic movements in Gaza via Sudan as an example of cooperation where the tactical and short term intersects with long term strategy. The paper also discusses the Islamists’ coming to power as a result of the Arab revolutions, and the potential for the revival of transnational revolution included in the literature of the Muslim Brotherhood and the effect of this on relations between the Arab states and their collective and individual relations with Iran.

​This section tracks the most significant political documents related to democratic transformation in the Arab world. In this issue, we publish two documents from Tunisia covering the period from 1 May to 30 June 2024.

Current scholarship on elections in authoritarian regimes has focused on exploring the relationship between elections and democratization, and it has generally used analytical frameworks and methods imported from the study of genuinely democratic elections to do so. These tendencies have kept scholars from asking a wide range of questions about the micro-level dynamics of authoritarian elections and the systematic differences among them. With these issues in mind, this review examines literature that investigates the purpose of elections in dictatorships; the electoral behavior of voters, candidates, and incumbents in these elections; and the link between elections and democratization. The review ends with a call to redirect the study of authoritarian elections toward uncovering and explaining the important differences among them.