DUBAI AND THE GULF STATES
Summer 2011
"What Role Should the U.S. Play in Middle East?"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School, Nicholas Burns, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics, Harvard Kennedy School, Ashraf Hegazy, Former Executive Director, The Dubai Initiative, Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs; Faculty Chair, International Security Program
The Belfer Center's Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns, Ashraf Hegazy, Joseph S. Nye, and Stephen Walt consider the U.S.'s shifting foreign policy in the Middle East.
March 12, 2006
The Nightmare This Time
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
According to a recent Gallup poll, most Americans now view Iran as our country's greatest national enemy. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News survey reports that 42 percent of Americans support a military strike to prevent Iran from developing nuclear technology.
June 2011
"A New Case for Wastewater Reuse in Saudi Arabia: Bringing Energy into the Water Equation"
Policy Brief
By Arani Kajenthira, Associate, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy and Afreen Siddiqi, Visting Scholar, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program
Industrial and urban water reuse should be considered along with desalination as options for water supply in Saudi Arabia. Although the Saudi Ministry for Water and Electricity (MoWE) has estimated that an investment of $53 billion will be required for water desalination projects over the next 15 years [1], the evolving necessity to conserve fossil resources and mitigate GHG emissions requires Saudi policy makers to weigh in much more heavily the energy and environmental costs of desalination. Increasing water tariffs for groundwater and desalinated water to more adequately represent the costs of water supply could encourage conservation, but also reuse, which may be more appropriate for many inland and high-altitude cities.
August 2011
"The Water–Energy Nexus in Middle East and North Africa"
Journal Article, Energy Policy, issue 6, volume 39
By Afreen Siddiqi, Visting Scholar, 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
Extracting, delivering, and disposing water requires energy, and similarly, many processes for extracting and refining various fuel sources and producing electricity use water. This so-called 'water–energy nexus', is important to understand due to increasing energy demands and decreasing freshwater supplies in many areas. This paper performs a country-level quantitative assessment of this nexus in the MENA region.
AP Photo
April 20, 2011
"Iran's Interests and Values and the 'Arab Spring'"
Op-Ed
By Kayhan Barzegar, Former Associate, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program, 2010–2011; Former Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/international Security Program, 2007–2010
"Iran seeks closer relations with the future government of Egypt, irrespective of whether its character is secular-nationalistic or Islamic-ideological. Egypt has sidelined former President Hosni Mubarak's policy of leading an anti-Iranian coalition in the Arab world—and Iran would like to capitalize on this development."
AP Photo
Fall 2010
"The Balance of Power in the Persian Gulf: An Iranian View"
Journal Article, Middle East Policy, issue 3, volume XVII
By Kayhan Barzegar, Former Associate, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program, 2010–2011; Former Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/international Security Program, 2007–2010
"...[W]hile the traditional form of balance of power between Iran and Iraq provided security for the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, it favored the interests of foreign actors, especially the United States. Proponents of such a view hold that following the overthrow of the Baathist regime in Iraq and the growth of Iran's role and influence in the region, the international community ought to establish a new kind of balance of power to restrain the Islamic Republic of Iran, and thereby preserve the security of the region. Following its failure to redefine the position of the new Iraq in terms of a new balance of power, the United States has itself tried to play such a role in the region. U.S. efforts to minimize Iran's role within the context of the new balance of power have consequently created another security dilemma in the Persian Gulf."
AP Photo
Winter 2007-08
"Iran, New Iraq and the Persian Gulf Political-Security Architecture"
Journal Article, Iranian Journal of International Affairs, issue 1, volume XX
By Kayhan Barzegar, Former Associate, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program, 2010–2011; Former Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/international Security Program, 2007–2010
This article investigates the necessity of establishing a new political-security arrangement in the Persian Gulf region in the light of new political developments in the region after the 2003 Iraq crisis. The author argues that following the recent political-security changes in the region and with the shift of Iraq's role from its previous threatening position, together with the prospect of building a friendly coalition between Iran and Iraq, the formation of new political-security architecture is inevitable in the Persian Gulf region. The new arrangement has to be based on the new political-security, cultural and economic realities. The author also argues that the nature of security threat in the region has changed. Under the new circumstances, instead of hard inter-states rivalries, the security challenges are more centered in human security and nations' political demands and expectations. Dealing with these new situations requires establishing mutual cooperation in the region.
July 7, 2010
"A De Facto Partition for Afghanistan"
Op-Ed, Politico
By Robert D. Blackwill, International Council Member, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
The Obama administration's counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan seems headed for failurewrites Ambassador Robert Blackwill. Given the alternatives, de facto partition of Afghanistan is the best policy option available to the United States and its allies, he believes.
February 25, 2007
"Changes Afoot on the Diplomatic Stage"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Seyom Brown, Former Senior Fellow, International Security Program, 2006-2007
"POLICY ANALYSTS in Cambridge and policy wonks in Washington are all astir , trying to ascertain whether the anti-US rhetoric by President Vladimir Putin of Russia at a conference in Munich was mainly for his home audience or signaled a resurgent rivalry with the United States...."
October 4, 2006
"Beware a New Bush Doctrine"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Seyom Brown, Former Senior Fellow, International Security Program, 2006-2007
"IN A DEFT move to divert the political debate away from the embarrassing National Intelligence Estimate on the impact of the war in Iraq on terrorism, President George W. Bush has been prematurely touting the "successes" of NATO's beefed-up counterinsurgency campaign against the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan...."
