Middle East

January 2005
Voices within Islam: Four Perspectives on Tolerance and Diversity
by Bahman Baktiari and Augustus Richard Norton
An author, an engineer, a reformist, and an ayatollah offer glimpses into a brave and probing debate that is gaining momentum in the Muslim world.

November 2004
Turkey and Europe: Will East Meet West?
by M. Hakan Yavuz and Mujeeb R. Khan
"For many Europeans, integration with a large Muslim country of 70 million people with a lower level of economic development and a much faster-growing population seems a daunting prospect. Equally daunting, however, may be a Turkey cast adrift...."

January 2004
Reclaiming Iraq from the Baathists
by Judith S. Yaphe
"Saddam may be gone but many Iraqis still think as they were taught to think: the United States is our enemy and helping the us occupation is unpatriotic. These are mindsets that may be hard to change, even if Baathism as a political movement is banned. It could require a generational shift, in which case there is little now that the United States....or any Iraqi provisional governing council can do."

January 2004
America's Iraq Strategy: Democratic Chimeras, Regional Realities
by Barak A. Salmoni
"When us policy makers discuss the democratization of Iraq and the Middle East, have they set out....concrete criteria for what that means?....Have they put together the indicators for when it is time to go home? Have they established, in short, what is enough democracy, and who decides?"

January 2004
Saudi Arabia Challenged
by F. Gregory Gause III
"It would be unwise to bet against the Saudi monarchy, based on its track record of staying in power. But the odds are getting shorter."

January 2004
A Woman's Place: Democratization in the Middle East
by Nikki R. Keddie
"Women's struggles, along with the forces of modernization, have increased the public roles open to women in the Muslim world despite the growing power of Islamism, and this expansion of women's roles constitutes in itself a force for democratization."

January 2004
Making War, Making Peace: The Middle East Entangles America
by Augustus Richard Norton
"In Iraq the United States appears to have checkmated itself, maneuvered into the calamitous position of being unable to exit easily or stay safely."

January 2004
The Palestinian State: Division and Despair
by Sara Roy
"The tragic ongoing violence between Palestinians and Israelis shields a greater tragedy currently unfolding in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: the dismemberment of the Palestinian economy."

January 2004
Is the Two-State Solution Dead?
by Gary Sussman
"A binational Israeli-Palestinian state "may come to be viewed as preferable to a two-state arrangement or a single polity in which winner takes all-and loser loses all...The politics of accommodation and power sharing may prove to be the only viable alternative to endless war or brutal domination by one community over another."

January 2004
Bringing Democracy to the Arab World
by Joshua Muravchik
"Are the Arabs capable of democracy? And if so, can Americans be the agents of their transformation? The answer, of course, is that no one knows. The lack of a single democratic Arab government gives grounds for skepticism....But there is reason to be skeptical of the skepticism."

October 2003
Losing Balance: Russian Foreign Policy toward Iraq and Iran
by Mark N. Katz
"Moscow's balancing act between Washington and Baghdad [has] failed, and its balancing act between Washington and Tehran is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. . . . [A] reluctance to establish clear priorities among competing interests threatens to undermine both its relations with the United States and its influence in a region of continuing strategic importance to Russia."

March 2003
Bringing Turkey into Europe
by Mujeeb R. Khan and M. Hakan Yavuz
"While the goal of earning EU membership has been central to the recent push to implement significant political and legal reforms in Turkey, it still remains to be seen whether Turkey's Muslim heritage, large population, and economic underdevelopment will remain immovable obstacles to full membership. It is now clear that this is a decision that can no longer be indefinitely postponed by Brussels or Ankara."

March 2003
For Oil and Empire? Rethinking War with Iraq
by Michael T. Klare
As part of our occasional post-September 11 series on terrorism, contributing editor Michael Klare examines the motives behind America's decision to make Iraq a central objective in the war on terrorism. "If concerns about weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and the export of democracy do not explain the administration's determination to oust Saddam Hussein, what does? The answer [can be found in] the pursuit of oil and the preservation of America's status as the paramount world power."

January 2003
Hamas and the Transformation(s) of Political Islam in Palestine
by Sara Roy
"While an Islamist alternative still remains unacceptable to most Palestinians, the Islamists, notably Hamas, increasingly have become a . . . part of the Palestinian political landscape; as such, they will need to be incorporated into-not marginalized from-any future political arrangement. Despite its militant extremism, the Islamist movement has shown that it can be pragmatic."

January 2003
Can the United States Promote Democracy in the Middle East?
by Amy Hawthorne
"In the aftermath of September 11, the United States has no alternative other than to begin to shift its role in the Arab world from an enabler of authoritarian rule to a supporter of gradual, but genuine, democratic change."

January 2003
The Struggle for Egypt's Future
by Denis J. Sullivan
"Egypt after Hosni Mubarak may look much like it looks now: another military man in civilian clothing in charge of civilian technocrats mismanaging both the economy and the political system."

January 2003
America in the Middle East: Statesmanship versus Politics
by Augustus Richard Norton
"No matter who rules in Baghdad, George Bush will have to decide between the role of statesman and politician in Arab-Israeli peacemaking."

January 2003
When War Isn't Hell: A Cautionary Tale
by Stephen Wrage
"In a setting where schoolchildren line the rooftops of Saddam's palaces and jamming devices interfere with guidance mechanisms, [precision weapons] may prove more seductive than productive. Indeed, they may prove largely unusable. As the president and his advisers draw up their war plans, they should maintain a healthy skepticism about the more sensational aspects of the promise of precision air power."

January 2003
When War Isn't Hell: A Cautionary Tale
by Stephen Wrage
"In a setting where schoolchildren line the rooftops of Saddam's palaces and jamming devices interfere with guidance mechanisms, [precision weapons] may prove more seductive than productive. Indeed, they may prove largely unusable. As the president and his advisers draw up their war plans, they should maintain a healthy skepticism about the more sensational aspects of the promise of precision air power."

January 2003
Iran: Doubting Reform
by Bahman Baktiari and Haleh Vaziri
"September 11 and subsequent developments have put to rest any idea that reforms will occur quickly in Iran or that relations will be restored with the United States."