IRAQ
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."
March 20, 2013
"'Iran is the Main Beneficiary of the Iraq War'"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, The European
By Max Tholl and Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs; Faculty Chair, International Security Program
"Iran has always been a major power in that region. Under Saddam however, Iran and Iraq were bitter enemies who fought a long war and were strongly opposed to one another. There was almost a rough balance of power between the two countries. By reducing Iraq's power and by allowing the Shia to become the dominant political force in Iraq, the US removed the main country balancing Iran, and helped bring to power a government that has at least some sympathies and links to Iran. So, Iran is by far the main strategic beneficiary of the Iraq War, which made it even more difficult for the US and its allies to deal with the country."
whitehouse.gov
March 19, 2013
"America and the Middle East-II"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
American and other foreign support for Arab autocrats and dictators for over half a century helped to create the conditions of disparity, corruption, and populist despair that ultimately sparked the uprisings and citizen demands for rights that we now witness. The Anglo-American invasion of Iraq has been the single most important stimulus for new terrorists who gravitated to occupied Iraq from many lands, eager to repel the foreign invaders, and who have since seeped out of Iraq to do their dirty deeds in other Arab countries.
(DoD Photo)
March 19, 2013
"Still Trying to Win the Peace in Iraq"
Op-Ed, The Straits Times
By Derwin Pereira, International Council Member, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"Ten years ago, this newspaper dispatched me to cover the Iraq War and its impact on the Middle East on a two-month odyssey that took me to Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar....The good news is that Iraqis are winning that peace, as they should. How well they consolidate their gains has implications for the region in the immediate future....Iraq will contribute to the process if it can show that day- to-day democracy can work in ethnically-divided societies, and that the Middle East is not fated to be a group of tribes forever in quest of a region."
March 18, 2013
"A War's Misleading Anniversary"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The narrative of the Iraq war has a prologue and an epilogue whose lessons are as valuable to the United States as those derived from what came in between. As for the prelude, defenders of the war have somehow successfully rewritten the story to ignore the fact that many scholars, journalists, and defense specialists were urging President Bush not to succumb to this folly."
March 13, 2013
"History Will Judge Bush on Iraq War"
Op-Ed, China Daily
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"Truman biographer David McCullough warns that about 50 years must pass before historians can really appraise a presidency. But one decade after Truman left office, the Marshall Plan and the NATO alliance were already seen as solid accomplishments. Bush lacks comparable successes to compensate for his mismanagement of Iraq."
Wikipedia Commons
February 14, 2013
"'Energy Independence' Alone Won't Boost U.S. Power"
Op-Ed, Bloomberg View
By Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
“We are finally poised to control our own energy future,” said President Barack Obama in his State of the Union message, noting the drastic increase in American energy production from unconventional oil and gas resources.
Controlling our energy future means more than just producing a greater amount of our own energy. It also means harnessing this energy renaissance to meet our global geopolitical needs. We’ve begun to reap the many economic benefits this boom brings—such as easing the trade deficit and lowering carbon emissions. But we have only started to appreciate how this energy renaissance affects our larger strategic environment. And, not surprisingly, many readers of the tea leaves have confused reality with desire, by hoping more energy at home will mean keeping out of the volatile politics and economics of the Middle East.
January 29, 2013
"Iraq and Egypt: Learning Democratic Republicanism"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
The events in Iraq and Egypt these days are particularly important to follow and understand as best we can, because of what they tell us about how some Arab citizens and leaders behave at stages of the process in which they have the opportunity to shape their own political governance systems.
AP Photo
January 14, 2013
"Chuck Hagel Will Too Set Policy"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The idea that high-level officials, like Roberts or Hagel, merely administer rules set forth by others is a fiction. The secretary of defense has an incredibly powerful position. Indeed, it was the triumph of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's ideology over other alternatives that led to the mess Obama inherited four years ago. Hagel, presumably, has a different approach to matching operational capacity with policy decisions. That is why Obama picked him in the first place."
December 2012
"A WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East: Creating the Conditions for Sustained Progress"
Discussion Paper
By Martin B. Malin, Executive Director, Project on Managing the Atom and Paolo Foradori, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program
How can the states of the Middle East begin to create the political conditions for achieving sustained progress toward the elimination of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons? This paper examines the challenges and obstacles that the parties of the region will need to overcome to bring a WMD-free zone into force, and recommends near-term steps for improving regional security.
