Research & Commentary

This article first appeared on Foreign Policy, and is co-authored by James Fromson, a Fulbright fellow in Amman, Jordan.

In the late 1980s, Western governments began to adopt drug policies based on the strategy of “harm reduction” (HR), which concentrates on alleviating the negative effects of drug use rather than on reducing its prevalence. This policy shift, largely motivated by the recognition that injection drug use contributes to the spread of HIV/AIDS, soon paid off. Within a decade the countries that had adopted HR as their primary policy had managed to control the injection-related spread of HIV and other blood-borne infections such as hepatitis. The spread of HIV among substance users came almost to a halt in Australia and the Netherlands, which had implemented the strategy vigorously. HR was a victory for not only health systems, which had successfully controlled a viral infection with no known “infectious disease model” solution (that is, a vaccine or effective antiviral treatment), but also for society in that HR forestalled the adoption of ineffective strategies such as segregation, which instead marginalizes drug users and abandons them to their high-risk behaviors.

The late January visit to Armenia by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif got little media attention, but it could have significant ramifications for geopolitics in Eurasia. Specifically, the trip could help Russia gain a trade outlet that softens the blow of Western sanctions.
 

During and immediately following the 2011 Egyptian uprising, Coptic activism reached new heights. Copts organized and came together to call for protection for their communities and rights more generally. However, particularly since the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood and the election of President Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, such activism has declined. Today, the number of active, effective Coptic movements can be counted on one hand. This leaves the church carrying the mantle of Coptic identity, allowing the pope to decide whether or not to engage in politics.

For more than three decades, harm reduction initiatives for people who inject drugs (PWID) have focused on preventing the spread of HIV. The objectives of harm reduction activities have gradually expanded to include reducing the number of PWID through education programs, stopping the spread of hepatitis C and other infections, and preventing overdoses. However, the single greatest rationale for introducing or scaling up harm reduction remains HIV prevention and (to a lesser extent) treatment, care, and support for PWID living with HIV.

Over the course of the past ten years, NATO[1] has consistently invited Saudi Arabia and Oman to join the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI), which launched in 2004 as a cooperation framework between NATO and the GCC countries. So far, the ICI contains just four Gulf partners (Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates), and neither Riyadh nor Muscat has accepted the invitation.

Around 100 Syrian opposition figures recently concluded a conference in Cairo. The meeting was noteworthy for two reasons. It signaled Cairo’s cautious but unmistakable entry into the Syrian minefield, and it marks the still-fragmented opposition’s first careful steps in the direction of a compromise with the Assad regime.

Turkey’s Kurds are playing a risky game. If they succeed, they can boost the country’s troubled democracy. If they fail, a further drift toward authoritarianism will follow.

The rise of ISIS and associated jihadi violence taking place in Syria and Iraq has reverberated widely. The effects can be felt not just in the horrific attacks that took place in Paris in January 2015, but across the Asia-Pacific region as well, including Australia. Public officials and analysts are struggling to understand and devise countermeasures to the recruitment mechanisms employed by ISIS and other violent extremist groups. This essay explores the role that social media has played in ISIS’s efforts to attract adherents.

This article was first published on LobeLog.

It appears that the senior princes who run Saudi Arabia don’t read Western news reports about their country or the numerous analyses of Saudi affairs put forth by American and European think tanks. If they did, they would have known that the death of King Abdullah was going to set off a “succession crisis” that would divide the ruling family and possibly destabilize the kingdom. They clearly did not get the memo.

This article was first published by Politico Magazine. It is co-authored by Amb. Daniel Benjamin, director of the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College and fmr. coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department.

Virtuoso French-Swiss qanun player Julien “Jalal Eddine” Weiss, who tirelessly promoted classical Arab and Syrian music to international audiences from his home in Aleppo, Syria, died this month in Paris. Forced to flee Syria’s brutal civil war like millions of other Syrians, Weiss’s death is a sad reminder of the ongoing threat to Aleppo’s rich cultural traditions, as well as an occasion to remember the city’s heritage, which played such an important role in inspiring his unique Middle Eastern compositions.

In July of 2014, I met with a former member of Tanah Runtuh, Jemaah Islamiyah’s onetime affiliate in Poso, Central Sulawesi. As he was newly released from prison, I wanted to inquire as to his future plans. Would he go to the hills and fight with Mujahidin Indonesia Timor (MIT)? Would he follow in the footsteps of many of his former comrades and become a contractor? When he walked into the room, I was surprised to see that he sported an Islamic State (ISIS) t-shirt. “Do you want to join ISIS?” I asked. “If I can raise the money,” he answered. A week later, I met with a former affiliate of Noordin M. Top who was running several small businesses in Solo, Central Java. I had interviewed him in 2012 when he was due to open the Solo branch of Dapur Bistek, a restaurant-cum-job training program for former fighters run by the Institute for International Peace Building. With his son next to him eating ice cream, he told me that he hoped to fight with Jabhat al-Nusra (the Nusra Front); he simply needed to raise the money. Whether or not these two individuals ever make it to Syria, their responses raise important questions.

Long-awaited elections for Egypt’s parliament, which has been dissolved since 2012 as the result of a court order, have been scheduled in a two-phase process beginning this March. What will the process involve? Why are these elections important? Ahmed Morsy answers essential questions.