A Candid Discussion with Mehrzad Boroujerdi
May 23, 2013 4 min. read

Mehrzad Boroujerdi on Iran’s Fractured Politics  Mehrzad Boroujerdi is the President of the International Society for Iranian Studies and Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Syracuse University. A political scientist by training, Dr. Boroujerdi is the author of Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism.  He is also editor, most recently, […]

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Analysis: The Arctic Council’s Kiruna Vision
May 20, 2013 8 min. read

  During the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Kiruna, Sweden last Wednesday, the body’s Secretariat released the “Vision for the Arctic” (PDF). The Secretariat is composed of the eight Arctic States together with the six permanent participants, the Arctic Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations.  The vision has seven sections, which I analyze below. The document’s introduction describes how […]

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A Candid Discussion with Eric Trager
May 20, 2013 6 min. read

Eric Trager on the Muslim Brotherhood’s view  of Iran and Iran’s foreign policy Eric Trager is the Next Generation Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is an expert on Egyptian politics and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Dr. Trager was in Egypt during the 2011 anti-Mubarak revolts. He visits the country on a […]

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Beyond the Amended Arab Peace Initiative
May 20, 2013 6 min. read

Credit: Ali Yenidunya/enduringamerica.com Although the Arab-Israeli peace process has been and continues to lie in a coma, a few weeks ago a notable attempt was made to jolt it back to life. On April 29th, Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani of Qatar, representing the Arab League, publicly announced an amendment to the Arab […]

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Somalia and the Slippery Slope of ‘Jubbaland’
May 19, 2013 6 min. read

  If the latest development in Somalia gives you the feeling of being trapped in the Twilight Zone — somewhere between relative security and renewed bloodshed — you are not alone. Due to the array of competing internal and external interest groups and the federal government’s lack of clear grand strategy or capacity to assert […]

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Warnings
May 19, 2013 3 min. read

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu flew to Russia in an attempt to dissuade Putin from selling Syria the S-300, a long range surface-to-air missile system. While Netanyahu was en route, Moscow leaked that the missiles had already been delivered. During a three hour meeting with Netanyahu, Putin went further, warning him against future Israeli […]

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India, Pakistan and China: The importance of regional powers in a post-U.S. Afghanistan
May 18, 2013 7 min. read

By Tyler Hooper With U.S., NATO and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) personnel set to withdraw the bulk of their military personnel from Afghanistan in 2014, regional powers such as China, India and Pakistan will have the opportunity to play an influential role in the country’s future. Both India and Pakistan have historically been involved in […]

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Will Post-Ahmadinejad Iran change its foreign policy?
May 17, 2013 4 min. read

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s eleventh presidential election will take place on June 14, 2013. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s time in office will end soon afterwards, but he will always be remembered for his outrageous comments including his denial of the Holocaust or the non-existence of homosexuals in Iran. Ahmadinejad’s undiplomatic language and his controversial comments were […]

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Cameron Visits U.S. in High Wire Act on Europe, Syria
May 17, 2013 7 min. read

The gesture itself was subtle, but as the collection of briefing notes were set to one side, so with it went a thin layer of pulped political barricade.  What remained were two government leaders seated across a table, a Russian president asking a British prime minister to state his case.  David Cameron traveled to Sochi […]

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Repression in Zim?: An Election Must Be Nigh
May 17, 2013 2 min. read

There is an old cliche about three similar events making a trend. Well, it appears we have a trend in Zimbabwe, where, not coincidentally, there is supposed to be an election this year. In recent weeks a young activist, Solomon Madzore, found himself in jail for likening President Robert Mugabe to a lame donkey. Not coincidentally […]

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Stoking the Nationalist Fires
May 16, 2013 3 min. read

Just when the rhetoric on both sides seemed to be fading, last week the People’s Daily, a Chinese newspaper, ran a lengthy commentary penned by two academics challenging Japan’s sovereign rights to the Ryukyu island chain – not far from Taiwan and home to Okinawa prefecture, the administrative body of the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku islands directly […]

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Asian States Admitted to Arctic Council, EU Forced to Wait, and Greenland Boycotts
May 16, 2013 6 min. read

Asia in, EU not yet China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, India and Italy have all been admitted as permanent observer states to the Arctic Council, while the EU will have to wait. Though technically admitted, it still must work out its differences with Canada. Countries are admitted as permanent observer states by consensus between the […]

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