Program Related Publication Feeds

Middle East Notes and Comment: Monsters, Inc.

Thu, 25 Jun 2015 00:00:00 -0400

It’s not hard to find Americans who want a victory over the Islamic state. The hard part is finding any with a good sense of what victory would look like. The late Justice Potter Stewart’s famous description of hard-core pornography, “I know it when I see it,” isn’t very helpful.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Popular Authoritarians

Tue, 26 May 2015 00:00:00 -0400

Dictators often go to extraordinary means to project an image of popularity. Bussed-in mobs wave flags and sing songs praising the leadership, and when sham elections are held, something like 98.7 percent of voters dutifully vote for the president. No one doubts the consequences of genuine opposition—imprisonment, assault, or worse.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Al-Azhar’s Perilous Resurgence

rshirazi — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 00:00:00 -0400

Egypt has played an outsized role in the Arab world for centuries, and that role continues. Its population of 90 million dwarfs that of all of its neighbors, and its legions of teachers, lawyers, and physicians scattered throughout the Arab world (and the prevalence of Egyptian singers, movie stars, and newscasters on Arab airwaves) give almost every Arab a personal tie to the country.

Middle East Notes and Comment: To Fight Jihadi Violence, End the Wars

Fri, 20 Feb 2015 00:00:00 -0500

The spread of jihadi violence in the Arab world is as obvious as it is painful. Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya all have groups that use the slogans and symbols of Islam to recruit, to radicalize, and to justify violent campaigns against the status quo.

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Other Side of Low Oil Prices

rshirazi — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:00:00 -0500

American consumers have celebrated the sharp drop in oil prices. In recent weeks, gasoline prices in many American communities have brushed against $2 per gallon, promising to put more than $500 annually into the pockets of the average American family.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Radicalism Four Years into the "Arab Spring"

Mon, 15 Dec 2014 00:00:00 -0500

While many observers of the Arab world had believed for years that change was inevitable, the “Arab Spring” itself came as a complete surprise four years ago. The idea that a self-immolating fruit seller in Tunisia could shake the political foundations of the Arab world to their core would have been thought ludicrous even in early January 2011.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Acting and Reacting in the Middle East

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 00:00:00 -0500

When mass protests broke out in the Arab world in 2011, the Obama administration saw opportunity. The president helped push long-time U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak to step down from the Egyptian presidency, noting, “I think history will end up recording that at every juncture in the situation in Egypt that we were on the right side of history.”

Middle East Notes and Comment: Rethinking Strategy toward the Islamic State

Wed, 17 Sep 2014 00:00:00 -0400

After trying hard to downplay policy in Syria and Iraq, the Obama White House has dived in. The recorded beheadings of two Americans seem to have crystalized a whole new policy approach, creating an open-ended U.S. military commitment against the so-called “Islamic State.” While the new U.S. policy is more than merely a military strategy, it is much more military than it should be.

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Middle East Unstitched

Wed, 06 Aug 2014 00:00:00 -0400

It is easy to claim that everything going on in the Middle East today represents a return to the region’s status before World War I. After millennia of pillage, massacre, and looting, the story goes, Western powers brought order to a fractious region and helped create modern states. Now, critics say the borders of the modern Middle East have outlasted their utility.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Hoping for Trouble in Iraq

Mon, 16 Jun 2014 00:00:00 -0400

Few in the United States take much pleasure in what has happened in Iraq in recent days. Many in the Middle East do. Until Western governments understand Middle Eastern governments’ motivations better, they won’t have much influence on the violence unfolding in Iraq.

Middle East Notes and Comment: America's Divergence

Thu, 24 Apr 2014 00:00:00 -0400

In an important way, Americans are diverging from the rest of the world. After a decade of terrorism and war, Americans are now feeling more physically secure and inwardly focused.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Traditional Remedies

Fri, 14 Mar 2014 00:00:00 -0400

In the decade after the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government promoted democracy as an antidote to al Qaeda’s violent ideology. Whether or not U.S. democracy promotion had much to do with it, the revolts and revolutions of 2011 recast Arab politics. To many U.S.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Enhancing Leverage

Fri, 21 Feb 2014 00:00:00 -0500

In October of last year, the White House made clear that three issues top President Obama’s Middle East agenda: Iran, Palestinian-Israeli peace, and containing the conflict in Syria. Common among all of these issues is that they are fundamentally about negotiations.

Middle East Notes and Comment: A Deeper Difference

Tue, 14 Jan 2014 00:00:00 -0500

If you were to believe the papers, falling U.S. standing in the Middle East is all about a supposedly feckless U.S. administration that cannot be bothered to pursue U.S. interests. In response, regional governments have reconciled themselves to a reduced U.S. role and resolved to carry on with little regard for U.S. preferences.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Why Syria Matters

Tue, 17 Sep 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Notably missing from two weeks of intensive U.S. discussion about striking Syria is why Syria might be strategically important to the United States.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Arab Politics Undone

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Arab politics used to be simpler. The traditional “Big Three”—Egypt, Iraq, and Syria—all squabbled for primacy, against a backdrop of Saudi conservatism. Palestine was a unifying cause. The United States and the Soviet Union competed for clients. The games were nasty, but they had rules.

All of that is gone.

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Age of Proxy Wars

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

As revolutions swept the Middle East in 2011, many saw it as the dawn of an age of democratization. More recently, many have begun to see it as an age of Islamicization. It is more accurate, however, to see the region entering an age of proxy wars, on a scale that is likely to dwarf the Arab Cold War that pitted Saudi Arabia against Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s.

Middle East Notes and Comment: A Tale of Two Crises

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Syria and Egypt present very different challenges for U.S. policy. One is in the violent throes of revolution, and the other is sorting out the aftermath of one. One has the United States exerting influence from outside its borders, and the other has a strong and diverse U.S. presence inside. Perhaps most confoundingly, one seems to be the object of too much U.S.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Paradigm Shift

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

American foreign policy strategy has been dynamic for much of this century, but its underlying principles have been relatively stable. For more than four decades, the Cold War provided a durable organizing principle, and for the two decades that followed, a quest for energy security has explained much of how the United States has seen the world.

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Asia Pivot

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Much of the talk about the U.S. “Pivot to Asia” has one thing wrong: it is not a pivot away from the Middle East. That is not to say that some in the Obama administration don’t wish they could pivot away from the Middle East, or that the U.S. Central Command isn’t exhausted from fighting wars for more than a decade. Both are true.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Brother, Can You Spare a Carrier?

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

An aircraft carrier is a scarce resource. The United States has eleven carriers in its entire fleet, and only about half can deploy at any given time. According to the website globalsecurity.org, five U.S. carriers are currently at sea, and two of them are currently off the coast of Iran. That’s a lot of firepower directed toward one target, especially when few expect U.S.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Getting Syria Right

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

It has been a bad year for Middle Eastern dictators. Several have lost power or died trying to keep it, despite efforts to avoid a common fate.

Getting Syria Right

sherry — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

It has been a bad year for Middle Eastern dictators. Several have lost power or died trying to keep it, despite efforts to avoid a common fate.

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Iran Problem

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0400

As the world works to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, there is widespread agreement on what failure looks like: an Iranian bomb—or more likely, a number of Iranian bombs—that emboldens the Iranian government, threatens the Middle East and prompts many of Iran’s neighbors to develop their own weapons, destabilizing the most energy-rich part of the world.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Slippery Choices

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The Gulf Arab States have a dilemma. One reason that they have been able to avoid upheaval over the last tumultuous year in the Middle East is because they have made their already generous public subsidies even more generous. But within the short-term fix is a set of longer-term problems that could profoundly affect regional stability.

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Arab Decade?

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

One year ago, the protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square proved that Tunisia was not a fluke. Until January 2011, Tunisia didn’t resonate much in the Arab world. It was too small, too Francophile, and too socially liberal.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Allies at Odds

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The United States is used to looking for trouble from its enemies, but a growing set of problems will emerge from its allies. In the eastern Mediterranean, three U.S. allies are increasingly at loggerheads, and the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Politics of Piety

ian — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Many in the United States—and in the Middle East—worry that religious extremists in the Arab world are on the cusp of something big. Across the region, groups that blend religion and politics are injecting more religion into more open politics.

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Turkey Connection

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Saudi Arabia has a problem. Its decades-long alliances with Iraq and Egypt have been sundered, and its faith in U.S. leadership is at its lowest point in memory. Its regional threats have grown, not only from Iranians directly across the Gulf, but from the actions of Iranian proxies in Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East that endanger Saudi allies.

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Middle East Turns East

Tue, 17 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400

As the United States struggles to understand the paradigm shifts underway in the Middle East, one shift has received almost no attention, and it should. After more than two centuries of the United States viewing the Middle East from the perspective of an Atlantic power, the United States increasingly views the region from the perspective of a Pacific power as well. The shift has pro

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0400

It is tempting to see the political protests sweeping the Middle East as "Facebook Revolutions"; to see the Internet as a force that galvanizes hundreds of thousands of young people into a new political force that breathes life into stolid authoritarian regimes. But the Internet is only part of the story. Good old-fashioned television is probably more important in turning

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Disconnect

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0500

There is a disconnect between U.S. diplomatic efforts to heal the ills in foreign lands and foreign leaders' focus on their own domestic affairs. There is a disconnect between a U.S. government committed to change and foreign leaders' interest in continuity.

Middle East Notes and Comment: A Question of Commitment

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

The Middle East concern is not one of U.S. capability. There is no alternative superpower in the wings, nor a regional power that threatens to displace the United States from its privileged position. In a region that sees itself as both vulnerable and weak, the United States remains a vital part of the stable order.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Bipolar Disorder

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0400

U.S. foreign policy increasingly centers on two very different poles. The first is Asia, where trade-based relationships offer opportunities for extensive mutual benefit. The second is the Middle East, where persistent insecurity and violent extremism threaten American lives and American interests. The U.S. relationship with Asia is largely about upside benefits, and the U.S.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Games Kids Play

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400

As the United States celebrates its 234th birthday, we should consider an important question: What if the United States were acting like a two-year-old?

Middle East Notes and Comment: Clear Gold

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The most likely source of political and social unrest in the Middle East over the next twenty years is not warfare or military coups—it’s water. Military threats get all the press, but it’s water that is the real game-changer.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Victory over al-Qaeda

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

In an important way, al-Qaeda has been defeated. At one time, many Muslims admired the organization for its courageous opposition to Western domination, and many Westerners feared that al-Qaeda might draw Muslim communities into a battle with the West. Immediately after the events of September 11, 2001, it was not always clear how the battle for Muslim hearts and minds would end up.

Middle East Notes and Comment: China's Hard Choices on Iran

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400

On Iran, China increasingly seems to be the odd man out. Not only have the French taken a surprisingly hard line in international efforts to regulate the Iranian nuclear program, but there are signs Russia may be stiffening its resolve as well.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Defining Engagement

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400

For much of last month, dramatic images out of Tehran displaced a brewing debate over “engaging Iran.” Similar debates over engaging Hamas and Hezbollah fell by the wayside, too, and the debate over engaging Syria seemed to have been decided in the affirmative, with the announcement that the United States would return an ambassador to Damascus for the first time in more than four ye

Middle East Notes and Comment: Authoritarian Democracies and Democratic Authoritarianism

Tue, 26 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400

For a part of the world that doesn't have a lot of freedom, the Middle East certainly has a lot of elections that count. On May 16, Kuwaitis elected a new parliament, sending women to the chamber for the first time. On June 7, Lebanese will go to the polls, and five days later, Iranians will have their turn.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Justice is a Virtue

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500

The most pivotal speech President Obama gave in the 2008 presidential campaign may have been the one he gave on race in America. In March 2008, attention was focusing on sermons that Obama’s pastor had given seemed to reflect racism, intolerance and a paranoid hostility to the very government that Obama was seeking to command. The airwaves were full of criticism.

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Middle East Moves East

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500

The U.S. government’s map of the Middle East is changing. Long dominated by the Arab-Israeli conflict, U.S. conceptions of the Middle East are drifting eastward, increasingly centering in the Persian Gulf and coming to envelop the mountains and plains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Seen this way, the U.S.

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Beginning of the End?

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Last month, the U.S. intelligence community published an assessment of what the world might look like in the year 2025. Americans treated the report as an interesting exercise, if a somewhat esoteric one. For many leaders in the Middle East, however, and especially in the Gulf, the report was not esoteric at all. It was a glimpse at their personal futures.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Yankee Go Home

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

To hear some people tell the story, anti-Americanism will end on or about January 20, 2009. On that date, a new president will move into the White House, bringing with him a traditional American respect for foreign cultures, international law, and multilateral diplomacy.

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Vital Triangle

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

"If China is winning, the United States must be losing." That is precisely the principle that many Americans see at work not only in the world, but also in the Middle East. China’s surging manufacturing capacity has contributed to the steep decline in manufacturing jobs in the United States. U.S. businessmen worry about the consequences of Chinese firms taking over U.S.

Middle East Notes and Comment: What Went Wrong?

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 -0400

It has become impossible to credibly argue that the Bush Administration’s Middle East policies have advanced the national interests of the United States. After shifting enormous resources toward addressing the problems of the region following the events of September 11, 2001, and after cautioning patience through the “birth pangs of democracy,” the results have become clear.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Without Enemies

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0400

A funny thing has happened in the Middle East: virtually all of the government opposition to the United States has gone away. After almost a half century of Cold War battles to protect oil fields, deny Soviet access to warm-water ports, and commit hundreds of billions of dollars in aid, the Middle Eastern foes of the United States can be counted on one hand with several fingers left over.

Middle East Notes and Comment: Freedom Agenda, Take Three

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

It is, perhaps, surprising how much President George W. Bush has talked about democracy and freedom in the Middle East. Last weekend in Abu Dhabi, he delivered his third speech dedicated largely to that topic, which is three more than any previous U.S. president had done.

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Death of Political Islam?

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0500

The obituaries for political Islam have begun to be written. After years of seemingly unstoppable growth, Islamic parties have begun to stumble. In Morocco, the Justice and Development Party (or PJD) did far worse than expected in last September’s elections, and Jordan’s Islamic Action Front lost more than half its seats in last month’s polling.

Middle East Notes and Comment November 2007: Beyond the Silk Road

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Other than the United States and Iran, the country with the most influence over whether there will be another war in the Persian Gulf may be China. That’s not the conventional view, and it’s not one that sits well with Chinese officials and scholars.