Updates on Egypt & Syria

Egypt’s elected president, Mohamed Morsi, sparked a new political crisis less than two years after a popular uprising ousted Hosni Mubarak with a decree this week that his decisions would be exempt from judicial review. New mass demonstrations are rocking Cairo’s Tahrir Square while some Egyptian judges and prosecutors went on strike Sunday in protest. Morsi’s power grab came on the heels of his brokering a truce between Hamas and Israel after eight days of violence in Gaza. Joining us to discuss the dynamic political landscape in Egypt is ERIC TRAGER, Next Generation Fellow at The Washington Institute, where his research focuses on Egyptian opposition parties. Then, we shift to Syria in the second half of the hour, and catch up with MURHAF JOUEJATI, a Syrian-born professor of Middle East Studies at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, who was a member of the Syria National Council until resigning earlier this month, before the Syrian opposition coalition was restructured. The 20-month-old Syrian civil war has claimed thousands of civilian and combatant lives, and the shakeup in the opposition coalition reflects tensions between Muslim fighters intent on imposing religious rule, secular opponents of the Assad regime and Syria’s exile diaspora, as well as a divided international community whose only agreement appears to be on public denial of direct involvement.

AP Photo/Egyptian Presidency