Pervez Musharraf may have stepped down as army chief but the Pakistani military remains strong and democratic prospects are cloudy.

Stephen Biddle, CFR’s top defense analyst, cites positive developments in Iraq on Sunni security cooperation and reconciliation efforts from the Shiite-led government.

Sierra Leone’s elections were peaceful and participation was high but concerns remain that the conditions that sparked its long civil war are unchanged.

Under increasing pressure because of its nuclear program, Iran’s authorities have now targeted high-profile civil society activists to try to undermine Western influence.

Nathan J. Brown, an expert on Arab and Palestinian politics, says despite the major split in Palestinian ranks between Fatah and Hamas, it is “unlikely in the extreme” that some kind of peace arrangement can be worked out between Israel and the Fatah faction led by President Mahmoud Abbas.

The following article is a summary of views expressed by George Devendorf, the director of Public Affairs for Mercy Corps; and Tilly Reed, the chief of party in Afghanistan for Counterpart International at a panel convened by United States Institute of Peace to discuss the status and prospects of the development of civil society in Afghanistan.

India’s Muslim population, by most measures the world’s second largest after that of Indonesia, has suffered physically and economically at the hands of extremists in the country’s majority.

Pakistan’s growing independent media finds itself under threat for its coverage of the crisis stemming from the president’s dismissal of the chief justice.

The arrests of four Iranian-Americans have created a chill among those in Iran working to open up civil society and led to disagreements over U.S. support for those efforts.

A clampdown against civil society in Iran, including the arrests of three Iranian-American scholars, further complicates U.S.-Iran relations.

This report from the Washington Institute argues that there remains considerable potential for a ‘velvet revolution’ from within Iran. It argues that religious leaders in Iran worry that the Islamic revolution's enemies could recruit people through nongovernmental organizations dedicated to humanitarian, child welfare, trade union, environmental, and antidrug issues. Accordingly, any social or cultural activity outside the regime's supervision remains subject to suspicion, especially in the wake of the "color" revolutions that led to the replacement of leaders inGeorgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan--countries close to Iran's borders.

In the Far Eastern Economic Review, Carsten A. Holz asks whether China analysts are compromised by their dealings with the Chinese government.

This report from the Government Accountability Office on U.S. government efforts to organize, equip, and train Iraqi security forces says that significant challenges remain to be overcome before the ISF achieves full capability.

CFR's Manjeet Kripalani discusses the rise in civil unrest over Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's decision to suspend the chief justice.

The White House still avoids the label, but by any reasonable historical standard, the Iraqi civil war has begun. The record of past such wars suggests that Washington cannot stop this one -- and that Iraqis will be able to reach a power-sharing deal only after much more fighting, if then. The United States can help bring about a settlement eventually by balancing Iraqi factions from afar, but there is little it can do to avert bloodshed now.

This report from Human Rights Watch released in January concludes that President Hamid Karzai’s government and its international backers have largely failed to meet the compact’s benchmarks on improving human rights and basic security. It says that the government and its international backers have made little progress in providing basic needs like security, food, electricity, water and health care, and says that the United States and the European Union should provide greater economic, political and military assistance, while President Karzai’s government should improve the rule of law and hold militias and warlords accountable for abuses.