Politics

Summary While the American mainstream media was busy discussing the fly on Mike Pence’s head during Vice Presidential Debate, the Armenian-Turkish conflict entered the second week of violence across the entire line of contact (LoC) between the Republic of Artsakh and Azerbaijan, and many regional and extra-regional powers took a neutral to stand and watch attentively from the sidelines. An attempt by Azerbaijani-Turkish and ISIS-linked formations to encircle Artsakh by taking over its strategic communication highways with the Republic of Armenia while carrying out devastating blows against Artsakh’s Defense Army in a new and enhanced blitzkrieg strategy has failed dramatically....

Three weeks ago, the western region of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) announced that it will be closing its AGBU Vatche and Tamar Manoukian High School in Pasadena, California. A flurry of protests and protestations flooded the public Armenian-American square, unanimously condemning the decision and imploring AGBU to reconsider. Unfortunately, many issues central to the Diaspora’s existence in the West that were inherent to the decision to close the school and were unexpectedly thrust into the limelight went largely ignored....

We are now less than a year away from the 2012 elections and the campaign trail is already heating up. The race for the white house has catapulted various GOP candidates to the top of the mountain, only to see them tumble from its peak. So far we have seen some historic debate gaffes, incredibly bold policy proposals and unorthodox candidates try to distinguish themselves from each other, all in an effort to be the anti-Romney; the presumptive GOP nominee....

A seething revolt across much of Syria is being met with ferocious repression by the Ba’athist government’s security forces. But so far, the two cities where close to half of Syria’s population lives - Damascus and Aleppo - are relatively calm. In this evolving situation, what are the prospects for Syria’s regime and people? Vicken Cheterian reports and reflects. A visit to Damascus, at a time when so much of the rest of Syria is burning, offers a striking contrast to the images of the country presented in international broadcasting media....

YEREVAN, ARMENIA That an Armenian repatriate, American-born into a legacy of remembrance inherited from a line of survivors of genocide nearly a century ago, feels compelled to entitle his thoughts with a focus on Turkey– and not Armenia– reveals a larger problem, a gaping wound, and an imperative for closure long overdue on both sides of history’s tragic divide. The new Armenia, independent of its longstanding statelessness since 1991, is my everyday life, as are the yearnings of my fellow citizens for their daily dignity, true democracy, the rule of law, and an empowering end to sham elections and the corruption, arrogance and unaccountability of power....

Abstract The current post-Soviet bureaucracy in South Caucasian republics, and notably in ethnically diverse Azerbaijan and Georgia, has yet been unable to link ethnicity, territory, and political administration in the process of state-building and democratic development. Bureaucratic evolution from communism to liberalism has simply contributed to the establishment of a handy “electoral democracy” and lucrative economic liberalism for the elites. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, particularistic identities, reinforced differences, and fragmentation of societies have been the dominant characteristics of the South Caucasian republics of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan (or Trans-Caucasus)....

Yerevan, Armenia On October 27th, 1999 five gunmen broke into the chamber of the National Assembly of Armenia during the weekly session of parliamentary inquiries addressed to the Government and opened fire. Within seconds they had killed the Prime Minister of Armenia as well as the Chairman of the Parliament, his two deputies and 4 other members of the Parliament and the Government, whose nearly total membership was present at the session....