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

Multilateralism in Munich

by , | Feb 13, 2009

Team Obama’s debut on the world stage at last weekend’s security conference in Munich was highly anticipated. With his pledge for a "new era of cooperation," Vice President Joe Biden struck the right note for a European audience still haunted by the Bush administration’s "with us or against us" approach. But once the memory of Bush fades, Europeans will realize the price of Barack Obama’s multilateralism. Like the U.S. president, they’ll be forced to define what kind of multilateralism they want and what they’re willing to sacrifice for it. More than any other issue, Afghanistan will produce this moment of truth sooner than might be expected, while determining NATO’s relations with Iran to a greater extent than expected.

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A New Era in U.S.-Iranian Relations?

by , | Feb 12, 2009

Iran is in the middle of celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution that ousted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and with him, the extraordinary influence the United States had on Iranian life. According to many right-wing pundits, the revolution was the start of an era of hostility between the United States and the Muslim world — an era that they see as still underway.

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What Saudi Arabia Should Do

by , | Feb 5, 2009

All eyes are focused on what the governments in Pakistan and Afghanistan are doing to combat terrorism. Some attention, however, should be paid to Saudi Arabia and what it could do to douse the theological firestorms it helped unleash in the region. This Western ally has the material and intellectual resources to make a difference now, just as it did in the war to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

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Gaza: Laboratory for the Power-Hungry

by , | Jan 29, 2009

Unfortunately for the people of Gaza, all the bloodshed there wasn’t really about Gaza. Despite the tenuous ceasefire, the issue of Gaza remains unresolved not because the sides disagree but because all sorts of external actors find the dispute useful. The larger reality is that Gaza serves as a cold-hearted laboratory for these external actors for testing dangerous hypotheses about far greater global political issues.

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Is Mitchell Up to the Task?

by , | Jan 23, 2009

Obama’s appointment of George Mitchell as special Middle East envoy may signal a step in the right direction regarding U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But there remain questions as to whether Mitchell is up to the task and whether the Obama administration is willing to put some muscle into the process.

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Repudiate the Carter Doctrine

by , | Jan 23, 2009

Twenty-nine years ago, President Jimmy Carter adopted the radical and dangerous policy of using military force to ensure U.S. access to Middle Eastern oil. "Let our position be absolutely he clear," he said in his State of the Union address on January 23, 1980.  "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region [and thereby endanger the flow of oil] will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

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