November 19, 2013
By Orde F. Kittrie – While US Secretary of State John Kerry pushes back hard against Senate threats to pass a new Iran sanctions bill, his negotiators are hopefully using that same Senate threat to extract a better deal from Tehran. Press reports make it clear that the interim...
November 19, 2013
By Bilal Y. Saab – It is no secret that the Arab Gulf States have a problem with the style and substance of the US diplomatic approach toward Iran (or rapprochement, as viewed from Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and other Arab Gulf capitals). As allies, they feel they should have been consulted prior to Washington “opening up” to a historical foe such as Tehran, and their primary concern is that talks could amount to a nuclear deal that would threaten...
November 15, 2013
By Jaymes Hall – Jordan opposed the Assad regime in the beginning of the Syrian civil conflict, but has all but fallen silent as the unrest continued. Partly in response to the stalemate in Syria, but perhaps more importantly due to the growth of extremism inside and around Jordan, Amman has reconsidered some of its domestic policies and its overall approach to regional affairs. Growing extremist role With memories of the 2005 Amman hotel bombings still vivid...
November 14, 2013
By Egle Murauskaite and Michelle E. Dover – Tasked with the mission of destroying the Syrian government’s chemical weapons capability amidst civil conflict, the United Nations’ Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) faces an immense challenge. This is the first time international inspections and efforts to dismantle a country’s chemical weapons capability are taking place during an active conflict. To effectively protect its inspectors, the OPCW needs a management and support system for what is increasingly looking...
October 31, 2013
By Bilal Y. Saab – On the eve of a basketball game between the United States and Angola during the 1992 Olympics, a reporter asked NBA superstar Charles Barkley how he felt about the coming matchup. “I don’t know anything about Angola,” Barkley replied, “but Angola’s in trouble.” Two weeks ago, a Lebanon-based journalist told me that a Salafi Syrian rebel commander gave him a similar response when asked what he thought about the United Nations Disengagement Observer...
August 23, 2013
By Chen Kane and Egle Murauskite – Reports are coming out of Syria of missiles tipped with chemical weapons being fired into rebel controlled areas near Damascus, which, if confirmed, would be the most brutal incident so far. This adds significant complications for the United Nations (UN) team of inspectors, who arrived in Syria on August 18, tasked with the first “on the ground” investigation into the possible uses of chemical weapons. The inspectors were already facing a...
August 9, 2013
By Nilsu Goren, Aviv Melamud, Ibrahim Said Ibrahim, and Ariane Tabatabai – The Middle East has provided an arena for different weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. Such weapons – nuclear, chemical, biological – are either being developed, acquired, stored, or contemplated throughout this highly-volatile and conflict-prone region. Most notably, there is the nuclear issue (Israel’s opaque nuclear posture and the controversial Iranian nuclear program), but the abundance of chemical and biological weapon programs throughout is arguably just as...
July 30, 2013
By Bilal Y. Saab – Political space is opening up in the Arab world. While it is particularly difficult to speak with any degree of confidence on the ultimate trajectory of the Arab uprisings (with all their local variants), the process of democratization that is sweeping the region is likely to have a significant impact on how Arab societies and their soon-to-be representative governments make and conduct foreign and defense policy in the future. One key area of concern...
June 24, 2013
By Ariane Tabatabai – Former chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rouhani was elected last week as Iran’s seventh president, succeeding one of the most controversial figures in the history of the Islamic Republic, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Following the announcement of Rouhani’s election, the White House restated its readiness to hold bilateral talks with Tehran. Many Iranian and international observers welcomed Rouhani’s election as a new opportunity to build rapprochement with the Islamic Republic and ultimately solve the nuclear crisis. Others however argue that...
June 20, 2013
By Bilal Y. Saab – The Obama administration’s 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance and U.S. Central Command’s 2013 Posture Statement call, among other things, for shifting the focus of U.S. military planning to the Asia-Pacific. To give itself a chance to successfully implement its global reposturing strategy, the United States must reshape its military presence and recalibrate its level of engagement in the Middle East. Doing so will require the support of willing and capable regional allies that can share...
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