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 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...
October 23, 2013
By Nilsu Goren – After the United States confirmed that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on 21 August, the Patriot PAC-3 batteries deployed at the Turkish-Syrian border have been on alert status.[1] Turkey requested the deployment of NATO missile defenses after Syria shot down a Turkish RF-4E in June 2012 and a stray artillery shell killed 5 civilians in the border town of Akcakale later that year. In order to increase...
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 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...
May 30, 2013
By Bilal Y. Saab – Terminating what is now a two-year-old sectarian civil war in Syria in which roughly 90,000 people have died and more than 1.5 million people have become refugees will be an enormously tall order. Add to that active intervention by external actors and a growing terrorist presence in the conflict and Geneva 2 almost becomes mission impossible. But the U.S. and Russian sponsored international peace conference for Syria should be a start to a long-term...
April 23, 2013
By Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova – In October 2011, Finland was designated as the host country for the 2012 Conference, and the Finnish Undersecretary of State Ambassador Jaakko Laajava was named as the Facilitator. In May 2012, the Facilitator reported on his work to the first PrepCom meeting. Despite conducting intensive consultations with states in the Middle East, as well as with the NPT depositaries and co-sponsors of the 1995 Resolution (Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States), Laajava indicated...
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