Juliette Kayyem
Lecturer in Public Policy
Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Contact:
Telephone: 617-496-6743
Fax: 617-495-8963
Email: juliette.kayyem@gmail.com
March 11, 2013
"Safety vs. Recovery after Disasters"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"March 11, 2011, was three distinct disasters. The earthquake and tsunami fell into the category of tragedies that are often unavoidable. But the nuclear accident requires a different analytical frame, and proponents of nuclear energy shouldn't be allowed to write off the Fukushima crisis as a natural disaster. Since the industrial revolution, there have always been industrial harms. As societies require more of technology, engineering, and transportation, there will be blips in the systems. What isn't inevitable, however, is that they happen again."
December 24, 2012
"The Year in Numbers"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The never-ending negotiations about the pending fiscal cliff sometimes amount to nothing more than a dizzying array of numbers. Who can count that high? The negotiations also make us think that the only stastistics that mattered in 2012, or will matter in 2013, involve dollar signs. A year in pictures may be compelling and beautiful, but the year in numbers gives a strong hint of what to anticipate in the year ahead."
October 11, 2012
"The Toughest Sanctions"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"Companies that manage the transport of all these resources can have tremendous impact on any nation's survival, making the movement of goods across the seas an unrecognized animating force in foreign affairs. The sanctions and the resulting economic crisis made the route through the Strait of Hormuz unsustainable for this major shipping line."
AP Photo
March 12, 2012
"Tough Poses in a Political Theater"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The Jewish community in America is much more diverse in its opinions than AIPAC's vociferous leaders would suggest. The same is true in Israel. Though Netanyahu pounds Obama on his lack of specific plans, the prime minister has hardly been forthcoming about his own. He seems more comfortable asserting Israel's right to strike at Iran than in actually explaining why such a strike would eliminate the long-term threat."
AP Photo
February 27, 2012
"Smart Nuclear Reduction"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The nuclear debate in Washington is only about the past, about a notion of this nation as the better of only two options. It's as if the critics are wondering: why must we tinker with everything that made America once spectacular? Endless discussions about whether America is exceptional or not (and whether this president thinks we are or not) are preconditioned on a memory that equates the size of our nuclear arsenal with our own relevance. It is simplicity in its most perverse form. What makes us exceptional is our capacity to adapt to a world that has changed, not holding onto a world dynamic that ended long ago."
January 19, 2012
"Stopping the Clock"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"...[W]hen the smart scientists decided to add global warming and biological harms to the clock's matrix in 2007, their previous laser focus on nuclear Armageddon lost its impact. Their explanation of why things have gotten one minute worse is a laundry list that includes nuclear proliferation, Iran, Japan's nuclear disaster and its effects on nuclear power investments, carbon emissions, and virulent strains of viruses that can be used for lethal purposes."
AP Photo
January 14, 2012
"Iran Scientist Assassinations Serve No End"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"Ahmadi-Roshan was likely as expendable to the Iranians as he was to whoever plotted his death. That suggests why Iran seems so incapable of protecting its allegedly high-value scientists. He was, in the end, of no consequence to the real issues at play. His murder should be condemned because it is brutal and gets us no closer to a meaningful resolution of Iran's nuclear ambitions."
AP Photo
November 10, 2011
"US, Israel Have Time to Deal with Iran Threat"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"Iran does not have a nuclear bomb, and nothing in the International Atomic Energy Agency's report released Tuesday brings the world any closer to doomsday. The IAEA report is disturbing; it concluded that Iran had let up on past efforts to build nuclear weapons but, as suspected, has conducted significant work more recently. The report will help build international support for isolating Iran; that is its intent."
AP Photo
March 15, 2011
"Can the US Handle a Nuclear Disaster?"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"Residents near the Pilgrim nuclear plant in Massachusetts, and those within the 10-mile radiation zone of Vermont Yankee and Seabrook, N.H., are used to preparing themselves and seeking assistance from the government with training and drills, access to medication, and evacuation plans. They may not be completely confident in the government's planning, but they aren't completely dependent on it, either."
August 12, 2006
What Not to Take From Britain's Success
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
There is much to learn from the British: their reticence about disclosing details, their clear expertise in human intelligence, their non-hysterical reaction to very real threats. But how we deal with our immigrant and domestic populations is certainly not one of them.
