In The News

With Iran Ascendant, US Is Seen at Fault

Anthony Shadid January 31, 2007
The US invasion of Iraq four years ago was supposed to spread democracy throughout the Middle East – not strengthen Iran. Arab allies to the US resent Iran’s growing influence in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran is one of the few Shiite-dominated nations in a world where almost 9 out of every 10 Muslims are Sunnis. Much of the violence in Iraq stems from bitter conflict between the...

Ahmadinejad's Flare Amps Up Tensions

William Pfaff January 24, 2007
In devising foreign policy, governments must strive to understand differences and similarities in the structures of other governments. For example, the US and Israel err in assuming that Iran’s president has as much power as the US president, cautions author William Pfaff. Another err would be using Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s defiance as an excuse for invading Iran. Such an attack is anticipated as...

Diplomacy as Afterthought Wins US Few Mideast Converts

Fawaz A. Gerges January 23, 2007
One can sympathize with the Bush administration’s desire to shift gears in the Middle East, from merely reacting to Iraq’s instability to actively pushing for peace in the region. Author and Mideast scholar Fawaz Gerges sees Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s diplomatic mission, however, as a case of too little, too late. Moderate Arab governments offer hollow words of support for the US in...

Muslims “Get” Globalization, But Does It Get Them?

Mehmood Kazmi January 22, 2007
The last half-century has seen an unmistakable rise in income levels and life-expectancy in Muslim-majority countries, but their citizens have a negative impression of globalization. International business consultant Mehmood Kazmi attributes this antagonism to the widening chasm of misunderstanding in Muslim-Western relations. With a history of cultural domination over the West followed by...

Containment, Not Appeasement

Ian Shapiro January 17, 2007
Despite substantial opposition both in the US and around the globe, the Bush administration resisted containment of Saddam Hussein and led the invasion of Iraq. Struggling to control the nation almost four years later, the US president resists diplomacy with characters who happen to be neighbors to Iraq. Containment is not appeasement, argues Yale political science professor Ian Shapiro. If the...

Israeli, Syrian Representatives Reach Secret Understandings

Akiva Eldar January 16, 2007
Despite adamant denials from top officials in Syria and Israel, the Israeli newspaper "Haaretz" reports that an unofficial series of meetings set the groundwork for a peace agreement between the two nations from 2004 to July 2006, with the last meeting held just after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Representing Israel, according to the report, were officials from the government of...

Shades of Cambodia

Harold Meyerson January 12, 2007
US President Bush announced publicly that the US will “seek out and destroy” any networks supplying weapons or training to “our enemies in Iraq. Bush’s stance defies the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan group of former high-level government officials who suggested that the US rely on diplomacy with Iraq’s neighbors rather than military solutions. In an essay for “...