The Lebanon war was a war without winners. Trends indicate that if anything, the changes that are taking place are going in the wrong direction. This was a conflict where none of the participants achieved their objectives. The Carnegie Endowment, in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, hosted Marina Ottoway, Volker Perthes, and Amr Hamzawy to discuss implications of the Lebanon War.
Political reform in the Arab world is a top priority in U.S. foreign policy and Morocco is often held up as an example of a country successfully moving toward democracy under the guidance of an enlightened monarch. The threat to a democratic transition lead by the Islamist PJD Party is not that it is too radical, but that it may be co-opted by the monarch.
Taliban insurgents and their Al Qaeda allies, once thought defeated in Afghanistan, are regaining strength. Frederic Grare examines the evolution of the situation in Afghanistan and takes a look at Afghanistan through Pakistan's eyes. In addition, Grare provides policy recommendations for regional relations in a post-U.S. Afghanistan.
The recent National Intelligence Estimate, selectively leaked to the press, claims that the Iraq war has increased the threat of terrorism. But this judgment seems impressionistic and imprecise. The question of what actions make us safer cannot be answered simply by counting the number of new terrorist recruits those actions may inspire, even if we could make such a count with any confidence.
In Russia the state has been tightening control over media ever since president Putin came to power. National television was by far the most important target, but rather than harassing journalists and editors, the Kremlin opted for controlling the owners - a method that has proved to be fairly effective in furthering the Kremlin needs.
Member and Secretary of the Parliament of Lebanon, Mr. Jawad Boulos, spoke at a roundtable hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and moderated by Julia Choucair, September 26, 2006.
The United States cannot talk to the world about nonproliferation if it is ignoring its own message. Nuclear proliferation remains an essential threat underplayed by the Bush administration.
Through the efforts of the Lebanese government and the international community, the war with Israel was brought to a negotiated end through UN Resolution 1701 that lays the foundation for lasting security and stability in and around Lebanon. 1701 provides a great opportunity to consolidate a secure, democratic and prosperous Lebanon