Middle East Policy articles from December 2008

Middle East Policy archives from December 2008

Editor's note.(Editorial)
December 22, 2008... It is still too early to predict just what the Middle East priorities of the Barack Hussein Obama administration will be, but echoes of election-night sighs of relief are still reverberating. His very name is engendering some good feeling...

The "global on terror": what has been learned?(Discussion)
December 22, 2008... The following is an edited transcript of the fifty-fourth in a series of Capitol Hill conferences convened by the Middle East Policy Council. The meeting was hem on Friday, September 12, 2008, in the Caucus Room of the Cannon House Office...

Mullah Omar's missiles: a field report on suicide bombers in Afghanistan.
December 22, 2008... GARDEZ, TRIBAL AREA OF EASTERN AFGHANISTAN, MAY 2007-- On an unusually warm spring day, my Afghan driver drove me out of Kabul, and we made our way down a road known as "IED alley" that leads to the Pakistani border. (1) On the way he...

Iran's foreign policy in post-invasion Iraq.(Essay)
December 22, 2008... What are the roots and aims of Iran's foreign policy in post-invasion Iraq? Many scholars attribute Iran's policies to a desire to achieve national and regional interests, perceiving this policy to be mainly offensive and ideological. (1) I...

Implications of a nuclear Iran for Turkey.
December 22, 2008... Turkey is a country that will be most negatively affected by Iran's nuclear-weapons capability, if and when it is developed. If Iran builds a nuclear stockpile, it will only add a new dimension to its already militarily superior position...

Georgian losses and Russia's gain.
December 22, 2008... Here is what Mensur Akgun, a columnist for the Turkish-language daily newspaper Referans wrote--not mincing words--about Michael Saakashvili's assault on South Ossetia: "What the Georgian leader did is really insane. No matter what the reason...

A friend like this: re-evaluating Bush and Israel.
December 22, 2008... As this is being written, the United States and Israel are at a crossroads. The problems in Israeli-American relations have been dealt with most controversially by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their recent work, The Israel Lobby, in...

A vision of Oman: State of the Sultanate speeches by Qaboos bin Said, 1970-2006.(Essay)
December 22, 2008... Oratory by a head of state positions a leader in his time. Speeches occasionally alter circumstances: defining a mandate, declaring war or divulging stratagems to protect and serve a nation. While most are relegated to academic tomes or the...

Advice to President Obama: dedicated to the memory of Professor Louis J. Cantori.(Barack Obama)
December 22, 2008... A quarter century ago, about the time that the Middle East Policy Council was created, little serious attention was paid to the Middle East at the annual meetings of the leading disciplinary associations, including the American political...

A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East.(Book review)
December 22, 2008... A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East, by Kenneth M. Pollack. Random House, 2008. 539 pages. $30.00, hardcover. In A Path Out of the Desert, Kenneth Pollack posits as his central thesis that the Muslim...

Beyond Regionalism? Regional Cooperation, Regionalism and Regionalization in the Middle East.(Book review)
December 22, 2008... Beyond Regionalism? Regional Cooperation, Regionalism and Regionalization in the Middle East, Cilia Harders and Matteo Legrenzi, eds. Ashgate, 2008. 222 pages. $99.95. It is popular in international-relations circles to assert that the...

The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East.(Book review)
December 22, 2008... The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East, by Olivier Roy. Columbia University Press, 2008. 160 pages. $24.95, cloth. This latest book by Olivier Roy, an eminent French scholar of political Islam, essentially argues that "the vision of a...

Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State, from Christian Militias to al Qaeda.(Book review)
December 22, 2008... Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State, from Christian Militias to al Qaeda, by Mark Juergensmeyer. University of California Press, 2007. 384 pages. $27.50, hardcover. Mark Juergensmeyer, professor of sociology at the...

The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World.(Book review)
December 22, 2008... The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World, by Graham E. Fuller. United States Institute of Peace, 2008. 197 pages. $12.00, paperback The New Turkish Republic, written by seasoned Middle East affairs specialist...

The Kurds Ascending: The Evolving Solution to the Kurdish Problem in Iraq and Turkey.(Book review)
December 22, 2008... The Kurds Ascending: The Evolving Solution to the Kurdish Problem in Iraq and Turkey, by Michael M. Gunter. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. xiv + 178 pages. The Kurds Ascending draws on much of Professor Gunter's most recent work to provide a...

Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values.(Book review)
December 22, 2008... Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values, by Philippe Sands. Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. 249 pages, index to 254. $26.95, hardcover. Torture Team is a fascinating book that ably and clearly navigates through legal...

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals.(Book review)
December 22, 2008... The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, by Jane Mayer. Doubleday, 2008. 392 pages. $27.50, hardcover. When Jane Mayer's The Dark Side was published a few months ago, it stunned...