MIDDLE EAST GOVERNANCE AND POLICY
Middle East 2008
"Learning from the Future, Innovating in the Present"
Journal Article, Innovations, Special Edition for the World Economic Forum on the Middle East 2008
By Philip Auerswald, Associate, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program and Mirjam Schoening
"...In this special edition of Innovations journal, prepared for distribution at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East 2008, we have compiled three essays and five stories that illustrate what it means to learn from the future, and what it takes to innovate. Together, the insights in this volume trace a path from present challenges toward a future of prosperity, balance, and resilience...."
AP Photo
April 21, 2008
"The US Democracy Gap in the Arab World"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Dubai Initiative Senior Fellow, Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, and Editor-at-Large of the Daily Star
One of the paradoxes of the complex relationship between the Arab World and the United States relates to the rhetoric and reality of democratic values. The George W. Bush administration has made democracy promotion a central pillar of its foreign policy in the Middle East at the level of rhetoric, but in practice it pays little heed to behaving democratically in its interaction with the Arab people.
AP Photo
April 15, 2008
"Two Arab Worlds Drift Further Apart"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Dubai Initiative Senior Fellow, Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, and Editor-at-Large of the Daily Star
As oil prices and income to some Arab producers continue to rise, we can witness sharper polarization between the wealthy energy-producing, small population states of the Gulf, on the one hand, and the more populous, energy-importing Arab countries all around it in the Levant region, the Nile Valley, and further west into North Africa. Any person who travels to such places as Dubai, Doha, Bahrain, Amman, Cairo, Casablanca and Beirut moves between two very different worlds that are united by investment and labor flows but are being pushed further apart in most other spheres of life.
January 6, 2008
"Israel's False Friends"
Op-Ed, The Los Angeles Times
By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs; Faculty Chair, International Security Program
"...the presidential candidates are no friends of Israel. They are like most U.S. politicians, who reflexively mouth pro-Israel platitudes while continuing to endorse and subsidize policies that are in fact harmful to the Jewish state."
January 2008
"Results Based Government in Arab States: Drivers, Barriers and Tensions"
Policy Brief
By Nesrine Halima, Former Research Associate, The Dubai Initiative, 2006-2007
The transnational movement of goods, services and ideas-the
process known as globalization-has had profound impact on national
government structures and how their administrations are managed.
In many respects, globalization has dissolved both material and
immaterial economic, social and even cultural boundaries. The
interplay between both these factors has made globalization an area of
interest and concern within the area of public administration. This policy
brief examines the relationship between globalization and resultsbased
government, and how global processes and trends have affected
the public sector in Arab states. The brief concludes that the variance
between the levels of progress in adopting and applying these tools of
public administration across the Arab world cannot be attributed to lack of political commitment alone, but also resides within the specific institutional and sociocultural histories of Arab states.
October 15, 2007
"Hizbullah's New Horse-trading"
Magazine or Newspaper Article
By Rami Khouri, Dubai Initiative Senior Fellow, Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, and Editor-at-Large of the Daily Star
The status of Hizbullah has become central to any discussion of events in Lebanon, which in turn instantly takes you -- like clicking on a political hyperlink -- to other sites in the region, given its linkages with Syria, Iran, Hamas, Palestine in general, Israel, other Shiites populations, and various Islamist and nationalist movements.
October 15, 2007
"Extreme Do-Over May Unify Iraq"
Op-Ed, The Boston Herald
By Chuck Freilich, Senior Fellow, International Security Program
Just as the U.S. has repeatedly rethought its military strategy in Iraq, it is time to recognize that the political process has failed and to change course.
Instead of sitting on the sidelines as sectarian influences rip Iraq asunder, the U.S. should announce a do-over and craft a new constitution designed to counter Iraq’s centrifugal forces.
October 7, 2007
"Avoiding the Mistakes of Camp David"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Dubai Initiative Senior Fellow, Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, and Editor-at-Large of the Daily Star
In preparation for the November peace talks in Annapolis, President Mahmoud Abbas should listen to the Palestinian people and come with a prepared agenda of some consensus. This is how to overcome being seen as an Israeli-American puppet -- an avoidance that is the minimum for the possibility of successful peace negotiations.
September 26, 2007
"Transforming Weakness into Magnificence"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Dubai Initiative Senior Fellow, Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, and Editor-at-Large of the Daily Star
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner a few days ago offered a very apt, very French, comment on the real significance of the Middle East peace conference the United States hopes to convene this Fall, calling it “a very light, weak, magnificent possibility." US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made the matter slightly more interesting a few days ago when she announced that the United States would hope to invite the members of the Arab follow-up peace committee to participate, among whom are Syria and Lebanon. September 24, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Israel welcomed Syrian participation, as long as Syria played by the rules established by the United States and the international Quartet’s “road map” for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
September 25, 2007
The Wider Dilemma of Iraq
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Dubai Initiative Senior Fellow, Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, and Editor-at-Large of the Daily Star
