NORTH AFRICA
December 10, 2012
"Qatar Arms Deals Expose Limits of US"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"...[M]oving arms to just about anyone who was willing to bring down Moammar Khadafy would have satisfied three of Qatar's goals at once: its political desire for relevancy in making a future Libyan government beholden to it; its strategic desire to minimize the influence of the Shi'ite government in Iran, its giant neighbor; and its practical desire to make a lot of money. As if to make the last point clear, Qatar is now asking the new Libyan government to pay it back for all those guns."
Winter 2012-2013
"Center Team Advances Vital Research at Intersection of Water and Energy"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
Two years ago, Venkatesh (Venky) Narayanamurti and Laura Diaz Anadon, director and associate director of the Belfer Center’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy program, set the stage for the Center’s energy research team to zero in on the challenges facing energy and the natural resource essential to it in many countries around the world—water. This article reviews some of their work to date.
November 30, 2012
"It's a Close Call on Susan Rice"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
David Ignatius, an award winning journalist with the Washington Post and Belfer Center senior fellows writes that the current "Republican assault on Susan Rice is a fabricated scandal, attacking her for repeating CIA talking points, almost verbatim, to explain the Benghazi attacks. [However] the U.N. ambassador’s version, even with its omissions, may turn out to be closer to the truth than some of the inflammatory GOP rhetoric."
November 13, 2012
"The Post-Petraeus Era"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
"So it turns out that the top brass at the CIA had an inbox of secrets of the all-too-human, sexual variety. Titillating, unquestionably. But what about the other secrets – the intelligence secrets that are the agency’s reason for existence? How are they doing on this score? When the uproar passes over the personal misjudgements of Gen. David Petraeus, the country will be left with this question of intelligence goals and missions. And here’s where an overlooked problem of the Petraeus era should be fixed," writes David Ignatius in the Washington Post.
November 1, 2012
"Obama's Failed Foreign Policy"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Eliot A. Cohen, Eric S. Edelman, Senior Associate, International Security Program and Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
"Because of the last four years, we face a world in which our enemies do not fear us, our friends do not believe they can trust us, and those who maneuver between the two camps feel that they will not get in trouble by crossing us. It is time, and more than time, to choose a different course."
AP Photo
October 18, 2012
"Foreign Policy and the Parental Perspective"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"In that brief moment, a real distinction between the candidates on world affairs became clear: Romney believes in the war-on-terror model of foreign policy, in which events get pasted into a larger narrative of fighting terrorism — the 'Bush doctrine' applied to Libya. Obama believes in a foreign policy that deals with each situation individually, as a challenge to be answered."
October 15, 2012
"Khadafy Son Should Be Tried by Libya"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The ICC represents the proposition that newly free nations should punish their abusive former leaders through court, rather than summary execution. It suggests that a legal reckoning with the past can help countries break free of horrible legacies. Instead of challenging Libya's efforts to do just that, the ICC could have assisted in its investigation and provided the technical advice necessary to help Libya become a nation under rule of law."
October 15, 2012
"Africa's Leadership Fails Billionaire Mo Ibrahim's Test, But Technocrats Rise"
Op-Ed, Forbes
By Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development; Director, Science, Technology, and Globalization Project; Principal Investigator, Agricultural Innovation in Africa
"The main challenge is the lack of alignment between infrastructure strategies and the need to expand engineering training. As a result, there are very few engineering programs in African universities. There is also a perception that engineering is associated with large projects that tend to be linked to high costs, corruption and ecological degradation."
Hussein Mala - AP Images
October 2, 2012
"Muslim Anger Could Spur Economic Growth"
Op-Ed, Bloomberg View
By Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
As the violent anti-American protests in the Muslim world subside, those in the region and in the U.S. are wondering whether the upheaval will have a permanent effect.
AP Photo
September 25, 2012
"Dead Men Share No Secrets"
Op-Ed, New York Times
By Marisa L. Porges, Research Fellow, International Security Program
"But this one-sided approach — always opting to kill instead of capture — is a major weakness of America's current approach to counterterrorism. It deprives us of significant amounts of intelligence about what Al Qaeda is thinking and planning, and information that could help find other senior terrorists. After all, it was intelligence from a detainee that helped American forces track down Bin Laden."
