MIDDLE EAST
April 18, 2013
Rashid Khalidi: "Brokers of Deceit" Podcast
News
An audio recording of a talk by Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, on his new book, Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East, at MEI on April 10, 2013.
April 12, 2013
Egypt: A Look to the Future
News
An audio recording of a talk by the Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the United States, Amb. Mohamed Tawfik, at MEI on April 3, 2013.
U.S. Department of State
April 12, 2013
"Development with Sovereignty"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
I join with many others who applaud and are surprised by the speed and persistence of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s engagement in diplomatic efforts to relaunch Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. I applaud his initiative because it can only result in something positive, whether it succeeds or fails.
April 12, 2013
Iran's Economy Under Sanctions
News
An audio recording of Professor Djavad Salehi-Isfahani's March 25th talk at MEI on sanctions and Iran's economy.
April 10, 2013
Regulating the Other: Stories from Iran, Israel and the United Arab Emirates
News
An audio recording of a panel discussion at the Middle East Initiative on citizenship and identity in the Middle East on Monday, March 11.
June 2012
Confront and Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power
Book
By David E. Sanger, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
President Obama's administration came to office with the world on fire. Confront and Conceal is the story of how, in his first term, Obama secretly used the most innovative weapons and tools of American power, including our most sophisticated—and still unacknowledged—arsenal of cyberweapons, aimed at Iran's nuclear program.
Confront and Conceal—with an updated epilogue for this paperback edition—provides an unflinching account of these complex years of presidential struggle, in which America's ability to exert control grows ever more elusive.
May 2013
"Understanding Revolution in the Middle East: The Central Role of the Middle Class"
Journal Article, Middle East Development Journal, volume 5
By Ishac Diwan, Lecturer in Public Policy, Middle East Initiative
This paper presents the outlines of a coherent, structural, long term account of the socioeconomic and political evolution of the Arab republics that can explain both the persistence of autocracy until 2011, and the its eventual collapse, in a way that is empirically verifable. The changing interests of the middle class would have to be a central aspect of a coherent story, on accounts of both distributional and modernization considerations, and that the ongoing transformation can be best understood in terms of their defection from the autocratic order to a new democratic order, which is still in formation.
April 7, 2013
"Two Saints and a Sinner"
Op-Ed, Jadaliyya
"Recently there has been a marked decline in attempts by either the government or private persons to claim that their opponents are foreign agents or elements acting in their interest. This is not because political discourse has become kinder and gentler. It has become notably more intense and it is certainly not limited to debates about policy differences. Striking, however, is how infrequently anyone levies the once-common charge that opponents are not Egyptian...it is too early to say if this is a station on the way to a discourse that is both more civil and more probing or simply two distinct communities that refuse to listen to each other. But it is a significant change."
Associated Press
April 6, 2013
"Painfully Following Iran in the U.S. Media"
Op-Ed
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
One of the most annoying aspects of spending time in the United States, as I have just done with a month’s working visit there, is to follow the news coverage of Iran in the mainstream American media. Well, calling it “news” coverage is a bit of a stretch, because the mainstream American media is not really reporting news about Iran, but rather repackaged ideological attacks and threats that emanate primarily from the American and Israeli governments.
Spring 2013
"Correspondence: Assessing the Synergy Thesis in Iraq"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 4, volume 37
By John Hagan, Joshua Kaiser, Anna Hanson, Jon R. Lindsay, Austin Long, Stephen Biddle, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 1985–1987; Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security, Jeffrey A. Friedman, Research Fellow, International Security Program and Jacob N. Shapiro
John Hagan, Joshua Kaiser, and Anna Hanson; Jon R. Lindsay and Austin G. Long respond to Stephen Biddle, Jeffrey A. Friedman, and Jacob N. Shapiro's summer 2012 International Security article, "Testing the Surge: Why Did Violence Decline in Iraq in 2007?"
