Research & Commentary

podcast for Egypt After the Elections, recorded on the 28th of June, 2012

podcast for Egypt After the Elections, recorded on the 28th of June, 2012

podcast for Egypt After the Elections, recorded on the 28th of June, 2012

podcast for Egypt After the Elections, recorded on the 28th of June, 2012

podcast for Egypt After the Elections, recorded on the 28th of June, 2012

Senator John McCain was uncharacteristically subdued in a key note address yesterday to the Middle East Institute/Institute of Turkish Studies conference on Turkey.  He prodded President Obama to be more outspoken in denouncing the Assad regime and advocated a “safe zone” inside Syria along the Turkish border, but only in response to a question. He discounted the likelihood of NATO action, which the Europeans oppose, and suggested that the U.S. and Turkey should form the core of a coalition of the willing to support the Syrian opposition with arms and training.

Rebuttal to “Trafficking in Antiquities during a Time of War“

Bruce Richardson raises an important issue regarding the protection, trafficking, and exploitation of cultural patrimony. Aspects of this issue range across research, polemics, and litigation in attempts to document loss, return treasures, or on the other hand prevent restitution or repatriation. Richardson properly decries cultural looting, but we must distinguish among causes to reach agreement on protective steps.

This Opinion was originally posted on Freedom House’s “Freedom at Issue” blog on June 21, 2012.

Since the coup in April of 1978 by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), the social, cultural, political, economic, governance, and security fabric of Afghanistan’s institutions have been destroyed by the subsequent Mujahedin and Taleban regimes. It is impossible to have enduring peace, stability, and development in a country without a strong institutional foundation. After 33 years of war and instability, for the most part, the linkages between central, provincial, district, and village governance structures in Afghanistan are either very weak or non-existent.

This Opinion first appeared on CNN.com’s “Global Public Square” blog on June 20, 2012

Ever since Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah proposed forming a political federation among the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the pros and cons have been fiercely debated across the Middle East.

Originally posted October 2010

This second edition of the MEI Viewpoints series on Higher Education and the Middle East focuses on Empowering Under-served and Vulnerable Populations.

Originally posted October 2010

That education is a major force for socialization is indisputable. Education has the power to shape views of the world, to challenge long-held beliefs, and, therefore, to impact the social order. Its influences on the course of a society’s development are far-reaching, from the public realm of employment patterns and economic development to the private sphere of marriage and childbearing.

This Opinion first appeared in Al-Monitor on June 16, 2012

The death Saturday (June 16) of Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz is likely to have little short-term impact on the economic or political life of the kingdom or on its international relations. But it does accelerate the inevitable transition to a new generation of rulers who may have very different ideas about how the al-Saud should rule their people, deal with their neighbors and manage the critical relationship with the United States.

This Opinion first appeared in the the National on June 15, 2012

Just when U.S.-Pakistan relations appear to have reached a new low, yet another event drives them lower still, further complicating chances of stabilising bilateral ties.

Over the last 18 months, the deterioration of relations has been punctuated by a series of incidents, most dramatically the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden and the U.S. air strike last November at Salala, in which 24 Pakistani solders died.

This Opinion first appeared in Frontline.com’s Tehran Bureau on June 13, 2012 and was co-authored by Christina Lin

As U.S. and other NATO troops prepare to leave Afghanistan in 2014, a geopolitical realignment will be under way in Southwest Asia. One possible scenario would outright undermine a principle U.S. policy objective in the region: the containment of Iran.