MIDDLE EAST
March 2013
"Why America Should Not Retrench"
Policy Brief
By Stephen Brooks, Former Fellow, International Security Program, 2003-2004, G. John Ikenberry and William Wohlforth, Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security
The United States' extended system of security commitments creates a set of institutional relationships that foster political communication. Alliance institutions are first about security protection, but they also bind states together and create institutional channels of communication. For example, NATO has facilitated ties and associated institutions that increase the ability of the United States and Europe to talk to each other and to do business. Likewise, the bilateral alliances in East Asia also play a communication role beyond narrow security issues. Consultations and exchanges spill over into other policy areas. This gives the United States the capacity to work across issue areas, using assets and bargaining chips in one area to make progress in another.
Wikimedia Commons
March 27, 2013
"Islamists and Secular Nationalists in Syria"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
The fast pace of developments in and around Syria in the past week pushes the country more quickly towards the end of Bashar Assad’s regime that many of us thought was imminent last autumn. He did not fall then, for reasons that are very evident today.
Forthcoming 2013
"Bridging Decision Networks for Integrated Water and Energy Planning"
Journal Article, Energy Strategy Reviews
By Afreen Siddiqi, Visting Scholar, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, Arani Kajenthira, Associate, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program and Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy
Integrated policy and planning is needed to effectively meet the challenges of growing water and energy inter-dependencies in many regions. Joint consideration of both water and energy domains can identify new options for increasing overall resource use efficiencies. In order to identify and realize such opportunities, however, detailed knowledge of current and emerging water–energy couplings is needed along with a nuanced understanding of key actors and agencies engaged in decision-making. In this paper we develop a systematic, analytical approach based on quantitative analysis of water and energy couplings, identification and characterization of key actors and groups using concepts from stakeholders theory, and employing notions from organization theory of boundary-spanning agents that can serve to bridge inter-organizational networks for water and energy planning. We apply this approach to conduct an in-depth investigation of water and energy resources in Jordan.
March 20, 2013
"The Painful Lessons of Iraq"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
"Invading Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein a decade ago was one of the biggest strategic errors in modern American history. We’ll never know whether the story might have been different if better planning had been done for 'the day after,' or the Iraqi army hadn’t been disbanded, or several other 'ifs.' But the abiding truth is that America shouldn’t have rolled the dice this way on a war of choice," opines David Ignatius of the Washington Post.
March 21, 2013
"Triste Anniversaire"
Op-Ed, The Huffington Post
By Charles G. Cogan, Associate, International Security Program
"...[T]his was a useless war, conceived under the mistaken pretext that Saddam was in possession of weapons of mass destruction and resulting in untold sacrifices of dead and wounded on all sides."
January 11, 2013
"Worries About a ‘Failed State’ in Syria"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
"Growing chaos in the liberated areas of northern Syria is convincing some members of the Syrian opposition that the country will become a 'failed state' unless an orderly political transition begins soon to replace President Bashar al-Assad.
This stark analysis is contained in an intelligence report provided to the State Department last week by Syrian sources working with the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Describing the situation in the area from Aleppo to the Turkish border, where Assad’s army has largely disappeared, the report draws a picture of disorganized fighters, greedy arms peddlers and profiteering warlords," writes David Ignatius in The Washington Post.
January 25, 2013
"What the Suez Crisis Can Remind Us About U.S. Power"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
"Chuck Hagel means it when he describes himself as an “Eisenhower Republican.” He kept a bust of President Dwight Eisenhower in his Senate office for a dozen years and has a portrait of Ike on the wall of his current office at Georgetown University.
But the most compelling evidence of Hagel’s fascination is that he purchased three dozen copies of an Eisenhower biography and gave copies to President Obama, Vice President Biden and then-Defense Secretary Bob Gates, according to the book’s author, David Nichols," writes David Ignatius in The Washing Post.
January 30, 2013
"Israel Strikes a Syrian Target and Lays Down a Marker"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
"The Israeli attack on the SA-17 missiles was first reported Wednesday by the Associated Press. What’s intriguing is that the same area that was hit — the Jamraya research center in the suburb known as Dummar, northwest of Damascus — is also a center for chemical weapons research. This led some Syrian opposition sources to believe that the Israelis’ real target was the chemical weapons center," writes David Ignatius.
February 15, 2013
"In Egypt, the Kids Are Not All Right"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
"If you’re trying to understand the rampaging soccer fans who have become a political force in the new Egypt, you might consult Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel 'A Clockwork Orange.'
The book is about a chaotic future shaped by roving gangs of 'droogs' (Burgess’s imaginary word for young male toughs). Led by Alex, the droogs get stoned on milk-and-drug cocktails and then commit brutal acts of what Burgess called 'ultra-violence,'" warns David Ignatius or the Washington Post.
AP Images
March 2013
"The Long Hot Arab Summer"
Paper
By Nawaf Obaid, Visiting Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"The so-called Arab Spring has ushered in a great deal of hope that a number of Arab states might begin to develop and engender more socially responsive, economically prosperous and politically progressive indigenous conditions," writes Nawaf Obaid.
"Unfortunately, in the nine Arab nations I analyze here -Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Jordan and Iraq - this does not seem to be the case. Indeed, one might say that some or all of these nations are far worse off than they were before their social upheavals."
