Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The failure of U.S. policy in Iraq has provided autocratic regimes in the Middle East a reprieve from the pressure to democratize, as long as they position themselves clearly on the side of Washington in its looming confrontation with Iran, Syria, and Shiite Islamists.
Five months after the end of the war, Lebanon, Israel and the region are still feeling its aftereffects. In Lebanon, the claims of victory were mixed with a sober assessment of the massive socioeconomic losses, and the popular unity during the war was followed by deep division and rising tensions.
The International Quartet Committee's proposed roadmap to Israeli-Palestinian peace lacks enforcement mechanisms and wrongly focuses on security issues as preconditions for political progress, argues Sufyan Alissa. Organising internal Palestinian affairs is useless if Israeli policies of building settlements, the separation wall, of controlling natural resources and imposing closures, continue.
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.
Refusal to talk cedes the high ground to Iran without any benefit to Washington, but Washington should think twice about whether changing Iran’s actions toward Iraq will improve international security as much as modifying Iran’s nuclear program or ending its material support of groups that practice violent politics in Lebanon and Palestine.
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.
Many Americans would like to believe that Iraq was the product of aberrant “neo-conservative” ideas about foreign policy and that a traditional America lies just around the corner. We prefer to see ourselves as a peace-loving, introspective lot, a nation born in innocence and historically never choosing war but compelled to war by others. This self-image is at odds with reality, however.
The assassination of Lebanese industry minister Pierre Gemayel necessitates a balanced policy of moving ahead with the United Nations special tribunal on assassinations in Lebanon while also reducing conflict and instability through constructive and multilateral dialogue.