OP-EDS
May 8, 2013
Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
"It shouldn’t have been this hard, but Secretary of State John Kerry has finally gotten Russia to back the peace plan on Syria that it endorsed in principle last June. This isn’t a breakthrough, but at least it’s a beginning.
What the United States and Russia seem to have realized is that a negotiated transition of power in Syria is better than a fight to the death, which would destabilize the region. That’s a wise judgment, but it’s not clear that it’s shared by either the Alawite clique backing President Bashar al-Assad or the Sunni jihadists who are the backbone of the opposition."
May 9, 2013
Wall Street Journal
By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
"The Federal Reserve recently announced that it will increase or decrease the size of its monthly bond-buying program in response to changing economic conditions. This amounts to a policy of fine-tuning its quantitative-easing program, a puzzling strategy since the evidence suggests that the program has done little to raise economic growth while saddling the Fed with an enormous balance sheet."
May 9, 2013
Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"it became obvious that the public hearing wasn't just a chance for victims and their relatives to ask questions. It was a chance for Feinberg to lower their expectations, and warn them about what victim compensation can and can't do: They will never truly be 'made whole' again."
May 8, 2013
The Huffington Post
By Charles G. Cogan, Associate, International Security Program
"...[T]here are many downsides to what has happened in Afghanistan. In my view, we should have stopped hostilities in Afghanistan when bin Laden and his al-Qaeda followers escaped into Pakistan in late 2001. But it is now more than 11 years later and way past time to get out."
iStock
May 7, 2013
Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
"One of my rules of thumb of observing which way the wind blows in the Middle East is now in active operative mode: When Hezbollah and Israel both are actively fighting in the same third country, and Iran and the United States are both actively warning about their determination to act to protect their allies and their interests in that same third country, it is time to make another pot of coffee and make sure you have plenty of fresh batteries at home for your transistor radio."
May 6, 2013
Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"No society as open as ours can promise perfect security. Thus, it makes sense that a strategy that resigns itself to some form of terrorism in our modern age would, naturally, concentrate on making sure that those who do harm us are stupid, disorganized, rushed, and fickle. Their violence is smaller scale and therefore more manageable, made even more so by the efforts of well-trained first responders."
May 4, 2013
Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
"There is good news and bad news on the Arab-Israeli peace-making front this week. The good news is that the United States and the Arab League’s ministerial committee seem energized to restart Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. This culminated a few days ago in the Arab clarification that the 2002 Arab Peace Plan that offers Israel a comprehensive and permanent peace can include minor and mutually agreed land swaps around the 1967 borders."
May 3, 2013
The Huffington Post
By Charles G. Cogan, Associate, International Security Program
"...[I]n the event of a worst-case scenario in which negotiations completely fail, Barack Obama has committed himself to an unprovoked military attack on Iran, which would have a disastrous effect on world public opinion and lead to unpredictable human and material damage."
May 3, 2013
Los Angeles Times
By Scott Moore, Giorgio Ruffolo Doctoral Research Fellow, Sustainability Science Program/Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group
"The president and Congress, despite the political and organizational barriers, can nonetheless take steps to help end America's water wars. First, Congress should restore funding for the U.S. Water Resources Council and the regional River Basin Commissions. Before they were de-funded during the Reagan administration, these bodies served as focal points for water policy and as useful platforms for dialogue between states and the federal government. By fostering sustained, structured communication among Washington and the states themselves, they can help prevent disputes from arising in the first place."
May 2, 2013
Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"Immigration reform is about meeting the economic needs of the United States in the 21st century, from rural labor to Silicon Valley start-ups. It is about creating a border enforcement policy that is tough but also not cruel. It is about the United States. It is not about Mexico."
