Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Confrontational U.S. policy that tried to create a “New Middle East,” but ignored the realities of the region has instead exacerbated existing conflicts and created new problems. To restore its credibility and promote positive transformation, the United States needs to abandon the illusion that it can reshape the region to suit its interests.
Peter the Great once decreed that Russian monarchs should appoint their own successors. Peter forgot to do it himself, but the tradition eventually took root and survived the fall of both czardom and the Soviet Union. The upcoming succession of Russian President Vladimir Putin is no exception.
Lilia Shevtsova argues in a Daily Telegraph opinion editorial that Putin will remain the architect of foreign and security policy while Medvedev is to concentrate on economic and social issues. She writes: “In the Putin-Medvedev tango, Prime Minister Putin is going to be the lead dancer. President Medvedev is left with a somewhat humiliating role.”
Carnegie Endowment visiting scholar Josh Kurlantzick published an article in Time Magazine, where he discussed new sanction measures against Burma.
The growing influence of Sunni Islamists in Lebanon is fueled by rising anti-American and sectarian sentiments resulting from the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, Lebanon’s ongoing political stalemate, the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, and the summer 2006 war in which Israel devastated large parts of Lebanon.
Last summer, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russian strategic flights would permanently resume with the mission of protecting Russia. Protect it from whom? Although Putin has never identified the enemy that sparked the resumption of these flights after a fifteen-year hiatus, implicitly the antagonist is the only other country with a similar air capability—the United States.
Contemporary discourse on democratic transformation in the Arab world often lacks a critical assessment of the kind of progress that is taking place on the ground. Marina Ottaway and Julia Choucair-Vizoso launched their new book Beyond the Façade: Political Reform in the Arab World, a critical assessment of political reform in the Arab world based on ten case studies.
On January 25, Carnegie Senior Associate Ashley J. Tellis presented the findings of his Carnegie Report, Pakistan and the War on Terror: Conflicted Goals, Compromised Performance, at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London. Tellis and Carnegie Visiting Scholar Frederic Grare provided first-hand commentary following President Musharraf's keynote speech at RUSI.