YEMEN INCHES TOWARD PEACE; WITH AN EYE ON IRAN, ISRAELI UNVEILS NEW DRONE; U.S. REAFFIRMS CENTRAL ASIA TIES; AKP STEPS UP BATTLE AGAINST MILITARY IN TURKEY

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD PICKS A NEW LEADER; THE SAUDI STAKE IN YEMEN...; ...AND THE ROLE OF U.S. SPECIAL FORCES THERE; SECULARISTS SCORE A VICTORY IN TURKEY...; AND SUFFER A LOSS IN EGYPT

YEMEN HEADED FOR ECONOMIC DISASTER...; WHILE WASHINGTON MOVES AGAINST AQAP; COMMISSION UPENDS IRAQI POLITICS; CENTRAL ASIAN YOUTH SEEK MADRASSAS ABROAD

China expands anti-piracy mission in the Gulf; Landmark LNG deal with Australia prematurely terminated

BATTLE AGAINST AQAP MAKES FOR ODD COUPLES; HAMAS RAISES STAKES AT EGYPTIAN BORDER...; AND RESUMES ATTACKS ON ISRAEL ON EVE OF MISSILE SHIELD...; AMID ACCUSATIONS OF DISLOYALTY; KAZAKH-CHINA PIPELINE ONLINE

TURKEY LOOKS TO IRAN; ALL EYES ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH; SYRIA: A NEW SAFE HAVEN FOR AL-QAEDA?; ENERGY WARS IN CENTRAL ASIA

By now, the idea that the struggle against radical Islam is in large part a battle of ideas has become widely accepted. Our statesmen, diplomats and political leaders regularly intone that we are engaged in a monumental conflict between freedom and fear, between democratic values and religious totalitarianism, and between individual liberties and religious fiat. But is the United States actively engaging in this struggle? Sadly, all of the available evidence suggests that it is not. Eight years into the fight, America still lacks anything remotely resembling a coherent strategy for competing on the Muslim world's intellectual battlefields. And without one, it has steadily ceded the strategic initiative to its adversaries, who do.

Riyadh and Tehran take sides in Yemen civil war; Hezbollah has a new military strategy...; ...and a new political one

Lebanon gets a new government; The IMU ascendant; Saudi joins fray against rebels in Yemen; Iraq clears hurdle for national election

"This is the way the world ends," T.S. Eliot wrote in his epic 1925 poem "The Hollow Men," "not with a bang but a whimper." Had he written it today, Eliot could easily have been speaking about the strategic divorce taking place between Israel and Turkey - a monumental decoupling with the power to alter the correlation of forces in the greater Middle East.