EGYPT
AP Photo
August 9, 2012
"Egypt’s scapegoat for the Sinai attack"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
In firing Egypt’s chief of intelligence for his alleged failings in Sinai, President Mohamed Morsi sacked a general who has won high marks from U.S., Israeli and European intelligence officials — and who, ironically, has been one of the Egyptians pushing for a crackdown on the growing militant presence in Sinai.
AP Photo
July 20, 2012
"Islam May Be the Answer, Democracy is the Solution"
Op-Ed, The Huffington Post
By Charles G. Cogan, Associate, International Security Program
"The Arab world has changed in the last 40 years with the access of people to TV, the Internet and social networks....Autocratic, military-run regimes have been discredited. The people want to be treated with dignity, and to have a say in their future. Democracy is the durable element that has come out of the Arab Spring. It is a place where all can meet on a common ground, without religious-based rancors."
AP Photo
June 28, 2012
"Egypt and Iran's Inevitable Courtship"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"Is it really shocking to believe that one day, relatively soon, Morsi's government might be reaching out to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Is it that surprising to realize Arab leaders have the capacity to think as strategically as American ones?"
AP Photo
June 25, 2012
"An Emerging Democracy Requires More Than Just Elections"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The obvious fact that judicial systems are an essential aspect of democracy is all too visible in Egypt today. It turns out that the third branch of the Egyptian government had a different take on all the euphoria over Tahrir Square. If the actions of the Egyptian military merely hinted at the old adage that power, once captured, is rarely relinquished, the Egyptian courts have proven it."
AP Photo
June 7, 2012
"Can Egypt's Economy Turn the Corner?"
Op-Ed, The Daily Beast
By Hassan Malik
"...[A] range of countries, including the U.S. and Israel, has every interest in preventing a disorderly devaluation and financial crisis in a country of 80 million people on Israel's very doorstep. The $10 billion to $12 billion the IMF estimates Egypt needs would seem a paltry price to pay for regional stability."
Mohammed Zaatari - AP Images
May 21, 2012
"Israel’s Undersea Gas Bonanza May Spur Mideastern Strife"
Op-Ed, Bloomberg View
By Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
Egypt’s decision last month to stop selling natural gas to Israel could be a harbinger of increasingly confrontational Egyptian-Israeli relations, an indication of a worsening Egyptian economy, or both.
AP Photo
May 23, 2012
"Egypt with Dread"
Op-Ed, The Jerusalem Post
By Chuck Freilich, Senior Fellow, International Security Program
"Israel can, however, make a significant contribution to maintaining the peace treaty in the long run, by launching a renewed peace process with the Palestinians. Partisan political perspectives aside, nothing has undermined peace with Egypt as much as the absence of progress toward peace, and especially ongoing settlement. The prospects for progress appear bleak on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides, but if there is one thing the broad new coalition could do to save the peace with Egypt, it would be to achieve progress toward peace, or at least the appearance of the willingness to do so."
Summer 2012
Round Up of Middle East Initiative Spring Events
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
A year after the sparks of revolution began in the Arab World, the Middle East Initiative (MEI) focused its spring events on the implications of the region’s tumultuous transition.
AP Photo
March 2012
"The Arab Spring's Three Foundations"
Op-Ed, per Concordiam, issue 4, volume 2
By Heidi Lane, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2010–2012
"Post 9/11 politics placed security before reform and inadvertently justified extension or readoption of heavy-handed and semiauthoritarian practices even in states that had made some progress in moving away from dependence on security apparatuses."
AP Photo
February 6, 2012
"Not Just a Game"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"Egypt's future is not just about democracy, but about the basics of public security. If Egypt can't satisfy both simultaneously, then the Spring is lost. The battles on the street now are not about a unified vision of Egypt's future, but about competing visions of Egypt's fate."
