November 16, 2011
"The Arab League Awakening"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
Here in Doha, Qatar, it does not seem to be the new political vanguard and locomotive of the Arab world as reported by the international press. These reports followed the prominent role of Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani in the Arab League’s decision last weekend to suspend Syria and pressure it to stop using military force against its civilian protesters. The idea that Qatar is making its move now to assert a leadership role in the Arab world strikes me as exaggerated.
November 14, 2011
"American Perplexity about Middle East Trends"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
After an extended stay in the United States that allowed me to speak with Middle East specialists and interested citizens in many cities, I sense a new theme that broadly defines American attitudes about developments in the Middle East: perplexity. Of course, there is neither a single view among the diversity that comprises the United States, nor is there a single focus to the Middle East, which includes among its main issues the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iran, oil, terrorism and the ongoing Arab uprisings and citizen revolts for dignity and democracy.
November 9, 2011
"Iraq Reminds Us Why Accountability Matters"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
Just as I was leaving the United States last week after two months of traveling around the country and encountering the best of the people and culture, I read a newspaper story that reminded me of the dark and ugly side of the country. It was a New York Times report from Baghdad quoting senior U.S. and Iraqi officials who expressed, “growing concern that Al-Qaeda’s offshoot here, which just a few years ago waged a debilitating insurgency that plunged the country into a civil war, is poised for a deadly resurgence…U.S. and Iraqi analysts said Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia was shifting its tactics and strategies -- like attacking Iraqi security forces in small squads -- to exploit gaps left by the departing U.S. troops and to try to reignite sectarian violence.”
November 7, 2011
"The Arab World’s Work Has Just Begun"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
I’ve had the moving and educational experience of spending a few days in Birmingham and Montgomery, Alabama, studying the narratives and lessons of the civil rights movement in the United States. Simultaneously, I have kept an eye on the Arab world that is trying to make its own transition from a condition of autocracy and mass citizen rights denials to one of greater equality and human dignity. I will write in my next column on the many parallels I see between the American civil rights struggle and the two relevant struggles throughout our region: the citizen revolts in several Arab countries and the continuing Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation, colonization and subjugation.
October 31, 2011
"Heartening Signs of Arab Political Change"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
At rare moments in life, history takes a sharp turn for the better, and sometimes you can see and feel this happening in front of your eyes. This past week was just such a moment for the Arab world, as three different things happened in Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan that probably portend better days ahead for Arab men and women who cherish life in free and equitable societies that leave behind their ugly legacy of the police and security state.
October 26, 2011
"An Arab Birth Worth Celebrating"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
I celebrated two birthdays this past weekend, first my own biological birthday and then the political birth of the modern Arab world on Sunday, when Tunisians voted for their new 217-seat national assembly, or provisional parliament. Human birthdays occur every year, but the birth of the modern Arab world happens once in a lifetime, and it is exhilarating to watch the process unfold day by day. The significance and symbolism of the Tunisian election cannot be over-emphasized.
October 24, 2011
"The Prisoners Deal: A Rare Diplomatic Opportunity"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
The prisoners exchange that Hamas and Israel concluded this week could be a potential historic turning point in an otherwise moribund “peace process” where no noteworthy breakthrough has occurred in the past nearly 20 years of American-mediated, and therefore mostly Israeli-defined, talks. The prisoners exchange is significant for showing that the most implacable and violent enemies are able to negotiate and reach agreement, when both sides obtain gains that are sufficiently important for them to be able then to make concessions on issues of equal importance to the other side.
October 19, 2011
"The Saudi-Iranian Cold War"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
BOSTON -- As the Middle East continues to experience one of its most tumultuous moments of structural changes in several generations, and countries reconfigure both their domestic power structures as well as their intra-regional relations, we can expect much of the diplomatic maneuvering to revolve around the axes of two major ideological confrontations: the Arab-Israeli conflict and the invigorated Saudi Arabian-Iranian confrontation. It remains unclear if the national interests of both countries genuinely are threatened by the other, or we simply have mediocre leaderships using the exaggerated threat of the other and its own vulnerability to turn a local feud into a major axis of region-wide tensions and some active proxy warfare here and there.
October 17, 2011
"The Middle East Writes Its Own History"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
BOSTON -- I had the pleasure this week of speaking at the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts University on a panel entitled “Continuing tensions in the Levant,” which made me realize two related things. First, every single major player in the Middle East -- Arab states, Israel, Turkey, Iran, the European Union and the United States -- is undergoing major changes in regional relationships, and the Arab citizen revolts across the region continue to drive epic developments, making this a major moment of historic change that includes much more than merely the replacement of authoritarian regimes by more democratic systems.
October 12, 2011
"From Kent State to Deraa, Zuccotti Park to Misrata"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
NEW YORK CITY -- I have witnessed, learned and pondered much about the right of peaceful assembly and protest this past week, and not just in the Arab World -- mainly during visits to New York City and Kent State University in Ohio. The moving and instructive juxtaposition of the two sites, bringing together very different moments in American history -- the early 1970s and today -- captured the universal and timeless importance of the centrality of the rights of free expression and dissent to wholesome statehood and credible democracy.
