Middle East Policy articles from March 2004

Middle East Policy archives from March 2004

Corrections: Vol. X, No. 4, Winter 2003.(Correction Notice)
March 22, 2004... In Harald Fredericksen's article, "Water: Israeli Strategy, Implications for Peace and the Viability of Palestine," his affiliation should read, "Mr. Frederiksen is former head of the Water Resources Unit that supported country departments in...

Editor's note.(Editorial)
March 22, 2004... Now begins the most dangerous game for the Bush administration--even more risky for their political future than the botched aftermath of the Iraq war: trying to explain why pre-emption was necessary. Chief arms inspector David Kay, unable to...

Saudi Arabia, enemy or friend?
March 22, 2004... The following is an edited transcript of the thirty-fifth in a series of Capitol Hill conferences convened by the Middle East Policy Council. The meeting was held on January 23, 2004, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building with Chas. W. Freeman,...

Petroeuros: a threat to U.S. interests in the gulf?
March 22, 2004... "We do not rule out the possibility of pricing our crude-oil exports in euros. That would be interesting for our European partners." --Vladimir Putin, president of Russia "A switch to euros for oil trading will not happen in my...

Plans for Israeli-Palestinian peace: from Beirut to Geneva.
March 22, 2004... Since the beginning of the al-Aqsa intifada there have been quite a number of peace plans, recommendations, proposals, statements and the like--on the whole designed to bring about an end to the violence and a return to negotiations or to...

U.S. policy towards Syria and the triumph of neoconservativism.
March 22, 2004... With overwhelming bipartisan support, the Bush administration has embarked on a concerted campaign to undermine and perhaps even overthrow the government of Bashar al-Asad in Syria. The seriousness of Washington's concerns over Syria was...

Muslims pluralize the West, resist assimilation.
March 22, 2004... On November 20, 2003, while President George W. Bush was visiting Britain, two Turkish militants bombed the British consulate and a British bank in Istanbul, killing 27 people. Bush's state visit had been scheduled months earlier to celebrate...

An Islamic reformation in Turkey.
March 22, 2004... The broad canvas of Islam in Turkey from about 1850 to 1950 can be reduced to a thumbnail sketch. The sprawling Ottoman Empire, with the sultan as caliph of the Islamic world, became the superstructure of economic and social stagnation. Its...

Changing dynamics of Turkey's U.S. and EU relations.
March 22, 2004... One of the greatest challenges to Turkey's foreign policy in the post-Iraq War era concerns the changing dynamics of Turkey-EU relations. In analyzing them, one needs to take into consideration that the dynamics of Turkey-U.S. and U.S.-EU...

Why Kurdish statehood is unlikely.(The Kurds In Iraq)
March 22, 2004... With the possible exception of Iraqi Kurdistan, Kurdish statehood is unlikely in the near future for several reasons. In the first place, Kurdistan (the land of the Kurds) is completely contained within already existing states--Turkey, Iran,...

Transnational networks: new opportunities and constraints for Kurdish statehood.(The Kurds in Iraq)
March 22, 2004... At first glance, the prospects for Kurdish statehood have never seemed so promising. International penetrations into Iraqi Kurdistan after the 1991 Gulf War, including the creation of a safe haven by coalition forces, have allowed the Iraqi...

Turkey and Kurdistan-Iraq, 2003.(The Kurds in Iraq)
March 22, 2004... In the period between the Turkish parliament's rejection on March 1, 2003, of the resolution to participate (with up to 45,000 troops) in the U.S.-British attack on Iraq and the decision of the Turkish government on November 7 not to send...

Could a Kurdish state be set up in Iraq?(The Kurds in Iraq)
March 22, 2004... We can theoretically respond to this question with an immediate "yes." Kurds, like most other ethnic groups, may set up their own state. It would be plausible to assert, particularly after the recent operation of the coalition forces in Iraq,...

Kurdish reality in an emerging Iraq.(The Kurds in Iraq)
March 22, 2004... The Bush administration's decision to remove Saddam Hussein's regime from power in Iraq might turn out to be a watershed in the modern history of Iraq and the Middle East. Whatever our personal opinions on this regime change, Iraq's different...

Provincial not ethnic federalism in Iraq.(The Kurds in Iraq)
March 22, 2004... The dominant public discourse has assumed that the Kurds are a homogenous group of people who share the same language, ethnicity and political aspirations of independence. This totalized and imagined Kurdish nationhood is reinforced by the...

The 2002 Arab Human Development Report: implications for democracy.
March 22, 2004... The Arab Human Development Report for 2002 (1) (hereafter AHDR or Report) is an impressive 170-page document (the English version) that provides detailed description and critical evaluation of the economic, demographic, social and political...

The Future of Dissent: a Reflection on What Shall I Do With This People? Jews and the Fractious Politics of Judaism.(Book Review)
March 22, 2004... The Future of Dissent: A Reflection on What Shall I Do With This People? Jews and the Fractious Politics of Judaism, by Milton Viorst. New York: Free Press, 2002. $25.00, hardcover. I first met Milton Viorst a little more than a decade ago,...

The Paradoxical Kingdom: Saudi Arabia and the Momentum of Reform.(Book Review)
March 22, 2004... The Paradoxical Kingdom: Saudi Arabia and the Momentum of Reform, by Daryl Champion. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 392 pages, including notes on transliteration and a glossary of Arabic words, map, an appendix on sources,...

Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-honor World.(Book Review)
March 22, 2004... Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-honor World, by Akbar S. Ahmed. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishing. 213 pages. $19.95, paperback. This is a painfully honest and intensely personal book that expresses the anguish Akbar Ahmed...

Palestinian Politics After the Oslo Accords.(Book Review)
March 22, 2004... Palestinian Politics After the Oslo Accords, by Nathan J. Brown. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. Notes, bibliography and index. 323 pages. $19.95, paperback. American understanding of Palestinian politics has always been...

Middle East policy council board member, David M. Ransom, 1938-2003.(In Memoriam)(Obituary)
March 22, 2004... David M. Ransom was the founder and chief executive officer of an international consulting firm, DMRansom Associates, with clients among a number of Fortune 500 companies. He served as the American ambassador to the State of Bahrain from 1994...