Rebecca Anne Proctor

The Middle East Institute is pleased to invite you to a lecture and discussion with MEI Scholar Herman Franssen examining the impact of changing market forces and policies on Middle East Oil.Oil from the MENA region represents close to 70 percent of global conventional oil reserves and close to 40 percent of global conventional gas reserves.

Few question the desirability of finding a political resolution to the Afghan conflict or doubt Pakistan’s pivotal role. The growing divide of opinion in this country is over how best to achieve that outcome. One camp led by our military strategists insists that various political agreements are likely to result from accumulated military successes, sustained by Afghan governance reforms and economic improvements. Visible counterinsurgency gains are expected to gradually wean fighters away from the ranks of the insurgency.

This Commentary first appeared in McClatchy News on January 5, 2011.

The assassination of Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, Pakistan's largest province, has illustrated the increasingly chaotic environment in that country, which only promises to get worse in the new year. Weeks before his death, Taseer had the courage to say what his fellow politicians were unwilling to: that Pakistan's blasphemy law must be repealed in order for Pakistan to enter the community of modern nations.

*This article was first published in January 2011 by the Foreign Service Journal.

Relations between Libya and the U.S. have a turbulent history: War at the beginning of the 19th century; U.S. government support for Libyan independence after World War II; official and private-sector American engagement in the development of Libya’s oil wealth and human resources in the mid-20th century; Libyan terrorism and U.S. military retaliation in the 1980s; U.S.-engineered economic sanctions and isolation in the late 20th century; and restoration of diplomatic relations in 2006.

An earlier version of this Commentary first appeared in the American Interest on December 10, 2010

Iraq, the newest democracy in the Middle East, turned down an invitation to attend the December 10 investiture ceremony for the Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo. It thus kept company with a litany of repressive governments that declined invitations to the ceremony, including Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Tunisia and Venezuela.

This Commentary first appeared as an op-ed in Foreign Policy's Middle East Channel on December 21, 2010

On December 18th 2004, I discovered the Lebanese Emigration Research Centre (LERC), Notre Dame University, Zouk over the internet while searching for a post-doctoral research fellowship program on Lebanese studies in either Australia or New Zealand. I contacted the Director, Guita Hourani, who was instrumental in my winning the Codesria post-doctoral fellowship award. Elated, I departed for Beirut, Lebanon on February 21, 2006.

Originally posted December, 2010

Once upon a time in the land where the light of creation first shone, the fertile grounds around Baghdad nurtured the House of Wisdom.[1] Even as Europeans were looking for the light at the end of the Dark Ages, Caliph Haroon al-Rasheed and his son Caliph al-Mamoon had made Baghdad a center of learning. In Baghdad, scholars put words on “real” paper. They preserved Aristotle, Plato, Hippocrates, Euclid, Ptolemy, Pythagoras, and Brahmagupta and translated Greek, Persian, and Indian manuscripts.

Education reform is essential for the continued social and educational development of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).[1] The country has grown considerably over the past decade, and opportunities for business and professional opportunities have expanded. Educational development has been deemed necessary for the citizens of the country to take advantage of such opportunities.

More than in any other world region, the Arab Gulf states are experiencing a “higher education boom” in terms of the quantity and quality of institutions and programs now available. Over the past two decades, the Gulf states have imported a Western, largely American, model of higher education to address inefficiencies in labor markets and invest in their economic futures, to meet national reform agendas, and in some cases, to function as profit-making ventures.

There is a growing need in Jordan for universities to establish joint programs with overseas universities in countries such as the United Kingdom and to uphold partnerships with universities in the United States, Europe, and the Gulf states. Public universities are already highly regarded. Private universities are also seeking partnerships or joint programs with foreign institutions.

Educational reform in Israel has repeatedly shifted from expecting individual excellence to expecting access for all. Excellence and access reflects the early history of the country when Jewish funders from France, England, and Germany established educational systems for Jewish children. The Zionist organizations that structured much of the curriculum and the external funding streams insured the Jewish schools were far better funded than the British-supported schools during the Mandate.

External Partnerships

Jordan today, in spite of the scarcity of its natural resources, is at the forefront of the region’s states in several areas, primary among them are education, economic growth rates, and the qualifications of the Jordanian youth who have always proved their excellence nationally and abroad.

— King Abdullah II[1]