Middle East Policy articles from March 2005

Middle East Policy archives from March 2005

Editor's note.(Editorial)
March 22, 2005... Iraq has held elections for the committee that will write its constitution, and the winner is... Iran! As expected, the vote has empowered Iraq's Shiites, the majority (60 percent) religious group, who have never before held the political...

Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on "terror".(Transcript)
March 22, 2005... The following is an edited transcript of the thirty-eighth in a series of Capitol Hill conferences convened by the Middle East Policy Council. The meeting was held on January 11, 2005, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, with Chas. W....

The view from Tehran.(Iran)
March 22, 2005... This article deals with Iran's perspective on national security within the context of its vested interests and concerns. An attempt is made to identify the interplay of these interests and concerns with the issue of regional stability. I have...

Afghanistan's constitution: success or sham?
March 22, 2005... But is it enough to have a constitution? Certainly not!... A constitution can be no more than a stack of papers.--Hamid Karzai After twenty-three years of war and six previous attempts, Afghanistan once again adopted a constitution....

Turkey, the European Union and Paradigm shifts.
March 22, 2005... The wide and deep implications of the European Union's decision to begin membership negotiations with Turkey are further evidence (if such be needed) that there is no end to history. In 1952, West Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands,...

Return Palestinian water rights if not land: a proposal.(Palestine/Israel)
March 22, 2005... A fundamental barrier to solving the Israel-Palestine conflict is the demand of the "right of return" for the one million expelled Arabs and their families to the lands they owned within Israel. Though the right is inherent in U.N. Resolution...

A political-security analysis of the failed Oslo process.(Palestine/Israel)
March 22, 2005... With President Bush's June 2002 speech, the United States announced to the world that it was in agreement with Israel that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was no longer a viable negotiating partner. President Bush called for the...

Evaluating the Bush menu for change in the Middle East.(Iraq)(George W. Bush)
March 22, 2005... These contributions were presented at a roundtable of the Conference Group on the Middle East, "Evaluating the Bush Menu for Change in the Middle East," at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, September 5, 2004....

The continuing crisis in Iraqi Kurdistan.(Iraq)
March 22, 2005... An artificial state cobbled together by British imperialism following World War I, (1) Iraq may well prove to be a failed state. The interim constitution--known as the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) (2)--promulgated on March 8, 2004, for...

Postwar Iraq's financial system: building from scratch.(Iraq)
March 22, 2005... If I am permitted to dream, Iraq will develop into the Japan of the Middle East. (1) --Talib al-Tabatie, chairman, Iraq Stock Exchange The best thing is to overhaul the whole financial system. It's like when you have...

The Missing Peace: the Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace, by Dennis Ross. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. 840 pages, with appendix, notes and index. $35.00, hardcover. No one is more qualified to recount and examine...

The Truth about Camp David: the Untold Story about the Collapse of the Middle East Peace Process.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... The Truth about Camp David: The Untold Story about the Collapse of the Middle East Peace Process, by Clayton E. Swisher. New York: Nation Books, 2004. $10.17, paperback. Clayton Swisher's book about Camp David and the Middle East peace...

The 9/11 Commission Report. Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... The 9/11 Report. Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Authorized Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004. 567 pages. $10.00, soft bound. [Documents mentioned below are posted at...

Turkey-Iran Relations, 1979-2004: Revolution, Ideology, War, Coups and Geopolitics.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Turkey-Iran Relations, 1979-2004: Revolution, Ideology, War, Coups and Geopolitics, by Robert Olson. Mazda Publishers, 2004. 284 pages, with bibliography and index. $35.00, paperback. The imperial nature of the United States has usually...

A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era, by Matthew Connelly. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. xviii + 400 pages. $26.00, paperback. [A different version of...