Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
Middle East & North Africa
Iran: Willing to Deal

Iran: Willing to Deal

by | Feb 20, 2012

Determined to lift the economic siege and avoid a potential conflict, Iran has shown an increasing interest in reviving talks. Not only has Iran welcomed successive rounds of IAEA visit to its nuclear facilities, but it has also shown interest in engaging in substantive talks, with Turkey and Russia acting as primary interlocutors. It is high time for the West to rethink the sanctions track and craft a real strategy by finally giving true diplomacy a chance. This might be our last opportunity to avoid tragedy.

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Iran: Outgunned in the Gulf

Iran: Outgunned in the Gulf

by | Feb 16, 2012

Iran has threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz – a “choke point” in the Persian Gulf through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil passes – if the West imposes sanctions against Iran’s petroleum exports. This threat is not without historic parallel. In 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and launched its war against the United States after Washington blockaded oil shipments to Tokyo. Japan relied on 80 percent of its oil from the United States; oil sales make up 80 percent of Iran’s exports. A complete oil embargo on Iran, just as it would have done to Imperial Japan, would result in economic calamity.

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Adding Fuel to Syria’s Fire

Adding Fuel to Syria’s Fire

by | Feb 13, 2012

Despite the widespread international denunciation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the government in Damascus continues to crack down hard on the country’s growing domestic opposition. “They are moving in a direction that completely shows that they are absolutely out of touch,” says Yasser Tabbara, the secretary general of the Syrian National Council (SNC), a government opposition group. Other countries in the region have experienced revolutions, but Syria remains in a state of uncertainty. At the UN, China and Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning the Syrian government’s actions, making a coordinated international response even more difficult.

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Syrian Repression, the Chinese-Russian Veto, and U.S. Hypocrisy

Syrian Repression, the Chinese-Russian Veto, and U.S. Hypocrisy

by | Feb 7, 2012

On Saturday, Russia and China vetoed an otherwise unanimous UN Security Council resolution condemning the ongoing repression in Syria and calling for a halt to violence on all sides, unfettered access for Arab League monitors, and “a Syrian-led political transition to a democratic, plural political system, in which citizens are equal regardless of their affiliations or ethnicities or beliefs.”

Although the joint Russian and Chinese veto of the resolution is inexcusable, the self-righteous reaction by U.S. officials betrays hypocrisy on a grand scale and fails to take into account a series of policy blunders that have contributed to the tragic impasse.

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