Revolution and Political Transformation in the Middle East: Agents of Change
Originally posted August 2011
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Attiya Ahmad is Georgetown University’s 2009-10 Center for International and Regional Studies Post-Doctoral Fellow. She recently completed her PhD in Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. Dr. Ahmad’s work brings together scholarship on Islamic studies, globalization, diaspora and migration studies, economic anthropology, and political economy.
Originally posted August 2011
Let us assume that nobody will bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, at least for quite a while. There is no Iranian nuclear test in the offing. Until now, the inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have uncovered no diversion of declared stocks of uranium for use in a nuclear explosive device. Of course, clandestine activities could always take place in some remote stretch of the vast Iranian territory, unknown to the inspectors of the Vienna Agency.
The Middle East Institute is proud to host Gulf Research Center experts Abdulaziz Sager, Mustafa Alani, and Christian Koch for an examination of recent developments in the Gulf in the wake of the Arab Spring. The speakers will address the crises in Yemen and Bahrain, US-Gulf relations and the question of reform in the region.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has described upcoming talks with Iran over its nuclear program as "the last chance to resolve the crisis." Yet as the final hour approaches for an opportunity to avert a military attack, there are few apparent signs Iran will make compromises. Recent parliamentary elections have only strengthened the power of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the hardliners in his inner circle who aspire to make the Islamic republic a regional superpower.
This Opinion first appeared in the Huffington Post on March 22, 2012
Originally posted September, 2011
The flow of ideas, people, and commerce across national boundaries has been occurring with breathtaking rapidity in the broader Middle East, as elsewhere. These increasingly dense exchanges have generated new threats and vulnerabilities that have tended to impact women, children, and the poorest members of society disproportionately. They also have given people more resources and opportunities with which to shape their lives and their futures.
Originally posted September 2011
Approximately six months ago, I asked an astute long-time American observer of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict whether we had come to the end of the road for a two-state solution. He replied that we had come to the end of that road in 1967. Putting it differently, Zhou Enlai, the premier of the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong, when asked what he thought of the French Revolution, reportedly replied that it was too early to tell.
MEI Podcast number 10, 21 March, 2012, Iran and the West at a Crossroad: Will Recent Elections Make or Break a Deal on Iran’s Nuclear Program?
MEI Podcast number 10, 21 March, 2012, Iran and the West at a Crossroad: Will Recent Elections Make or Break a Deal on Iran’s Nuclear Program?
MEI Podcast number 10, 21 March, 2012, Iran and the West at a Crossroad: Will Recent Elections Make or Break a Deal on Iran’s Nuclear Program?
MEI Podcast number 10, 21 March, 2012, Iran and the West at a Crossroad: Will Recent Elections Make or Break a Deal on Iran’s Nuclear Program?
MEI Podcast number 10, 21 March, 2012, Iran and the West at a Crossroad: Will Recent Elections Make or Break a Deal on Iran’s Nuclear Program?