Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The staggering political and security challenges that face the Middle East should not be used as excuses to avoid addressing the urgently pressing socio-economic problems that the countries of the region face.
An in-depth look into the mindset of Hizbollah’s leadership, including their priorities, justifications for continued armament, and animosity towards the U.S. Through unprecedented access to high-ranking Hizbollah officials, including Hizbollah’s Deputy Secretary General.
The tragic repercussions of events in Iraq, Lebanon, Hamas's electoral victory and Iran's growing regional influence, have combined to pit two distinct camps of opinion against each other. One champions resistance to what it describes as the American-Israeli project for hegemony over the Middle East, the other prefers seeking negotiated solutions to crises that could jettison regional stability.
A recent article by Roger Stern suggests that because of a likely decline in Iranian oil exports and the attendant revenues, "Iran's claim to need nuclear power could be genuine". However, the suggestion that the Iranian nuclear power program is a response to an impending decline in Iranian oil exports is surely mistaken.
Michele Dunne outlines the major implications of Egypt’s current political climate and presents four key issues on which the U.S. should focus its attention: presidential term limits, greater freedom for political parties and movements, independent election oversight, and limiting executive branch powers under a new counter-terrorism law.
The Bush administration has finally admitted that the situation in Iraq can no longer be addressed by “staying the course.” But the options are limited.
Lebanon's political institutions are paralyzed. Once again, Lebanon's internal divisions and lack of immunity from regional and international entanglements has created a tight and complex knot of issues in which internal, regional and international conflicts are all tied up together.But despite all the complexity, compromise is possible.
The transformational objectives that led U.S. forces into Iraq are being supplanted by an unmistakable and bipartisan desire to bring troops home, end this mess and move on. That impulse, while understandable, reflects the national narcissism that dogs much of U.S. foreign policy. But one-sided solutions for ending the Iraq war are as unrealistic as the one-sided impulses that started it.
In the recent Senate hearings for the newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Senators Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) questioned Gates on his perspective on the Iran crisis.