GOVERNANCE
AP Images
August 31, 2009
"Power Outage"
Op-Ed, On Leadership at washingtonpost.com
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"In the multi-polar world of today's foreign affairs, we obviously have no great adversary---no crusade in Europe, no containment of world communism. For the moment, the great powers alternatively compete over economics and resources and haltingly (hypocritically?) seek to cooperate on global problems like climate change. Ours instead is an era of asymmetrical threats originating from failed and failing nations, where there is searing (though not yet nation-threatening) death and destruction involving military units and civilians and only shadowy, incomplete victories."
AP Photo/Eyad Baba)
August 24, 2009
"Talk to Hamas"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Is it important for Israel and the United States to sit down with Hamas and talk business? Yes, it is, according to Rami Khouri, for the same reasons the US is trying to extract itself from its self-inflicted mess in Afghanistan by negotiating with Taliban elements, and from Iraq by partnering with and paying off Sunni insurgents who had spent several years killing Americans.
AP Photo
August 20, 2009
"The Spiralling Cost of ID Cards Will Exceed All Their Benefits"
Op-Ed, The Scotsman
By Azeem Ibrahim, Research Fellow, International Security Program
"...[P]icture things from the suppliers' point of view. They have every incentive to get as much money from the project as possible. Unlike their dealings with companies, they have detailed public knowledge about the politicians' stated intention to procure the service. They will know the market better than the minister, so they will know what options they have. And unlike their dealings in the private sector, they may even know how much taxpayers' money is available for the project. All of this makes bargaining harder for the minister and easier for the private-sector supplier."
AP Photo
August 19, 2009
"The Grand Bargain that is the Mideast’s Best Hope"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Shai Feldman, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Gilead Sher
The Obama administration should persuade the Arab states formally to reaffirm and revive the API. Given their domestic fragmentation, the Palestinians are limited in what they can provide Israel in exchange for the concessions it is being asked to make. By contrast, the promise of peace with the Arab world is a more enticing context, justifying Israeli down payments such as in settlement construction.
AP Photo
August 19, 2009
"Riding an Old Path to Nowhere"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Hosni Mubarak has sat in the White House for almost three decades stating that progress is being made towards a negotiated peace, and every time we sit through this spectacle it becomes less convincing, even just a little bit more childish.
AP Photo
August 19, 2009
"ObamaCare Is All About Rationing"
Op-Ed, Wall Street Journal
By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
The best solution to this problem of private overconsumption of health services would be to eliminate the tax rule that is causing the excessive insurance and the resulting rise in health spending. Alternatively, Congress could strengthen the incentives in the existing law for health savings accounts with high insurance copayments. Either way, the result would be more cost-conscious behavior that would lower health-care spending.
AP Photo
August 17, 2009
"Human Rights Watch Gets It"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Equal treatment is the key to a breakthrough in Arab-Israeli peace-making, whether in assessing conduct in war or crafting a permanent peace agreement that acknowledges the historical traumas of both sides.
iStock
August 17, 2009
"Getting Your Fix"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Corporate Counsel
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"The fixed fee is not an easy answer to the economic conflicts between firms and corporate clients. But the current economic crisis makes it imperative to have greater predictability and regularity on billing and payment for both law firms and corporate clients. Beyond economic necessity, the fixed fee provides the opportunity for better cooperation on money, just as the enhancement of in-house lawyers has made for much better cooperation on matters."
AP Photo
August 17, 2009
"The Cruelty of Britain's Extradition Policy"
Op-Ed, politics.co.uk
By Azeem Ibrahim, Research Fellow, International Security Program
"[T]o stay as close to America as possible, Britain signed a new extradition treaty with the US which gave more protection to Americans than to Brits. Passing into law as the Extradition Act 2003, it made it easier for America to extradite British suspects than it was for Britain to extradite American ones. As things stand today, if Britain accuses an American of plotting a terrorist attack against London, the US government will only allow him on a plane to face justice if Britain shows that it has enough evidence to mount a good case against him. But if America accuses a Brit of plotting an identical attack against New York, Britain must put him on a plane to the States without so much as asking America to show that it has a good case at all. It is a lopsided legally-sanctioned double standard, and previous ministers have admitted as much."
AP Photo
August 14, 2009
"ID Cards — A Government Mandated Facebook?"
Op-Ed, politics.co.uk
By Azeem Ibrahim, Research Fellow, International Security Program
"The quantity of arguments for ID cards looks like an attempt to hide a lack of quality. The government has been hard-pressed to explain how ID cards will make us safer. It is true that they will make it easier for, say, customs officials to ascertain that you are who you say you are. But that can already be done for everyone who has a passport. It is true that biometric chips might make the process more accurate. But that argues for biometric passports, as another recanting ex-home secretary, David Blunkett, has pointed out. If you want to make identification more accurate by introducing a biometric chip, that does not entail spending £3 billion in a recession on an entirely new biometric ID card scheme."
