In-Depth Coverage

Original Commentaries

11/13/08: The View from Gaza —Taghreed El-Khodary, New York Times journalist in Gaza and Harvard University Nieman Fellow (2005-2006). Interviewed by Middle East Bulletin.
11/04/08: Getting on the Right Track —Dalia Rabin, chairperson, Rabin Center, and daughter of the late Yitzhak Rabin. Interview with Middle East Bulletin.
10/23/08: Bottom-Up Meets Top-Down for Progress —Robert Danin, Head of Mission, Office of Quartet Representative Tony Blair and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs. Interview with Middle East Bulletin.

Setting the Record Straight

U.S. Policy Strengthens Iran

"Simply put, without permanent bases in Iraq, a nuclear capable Islamic Republic cannot be contained."
—Michael Rubin, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute, "Can a Nuclear Iran Be Contained or Deterred?" Middle Eastern Outlook, November 5, 2008

“[B]y attacking Iraq, we automatically made Iran a regional power. We took out their major adversary in Iraq, and we neutralized, if only temporarily, the Taliban, on the other side. And so now we see not only that they are regional powers, but clearly indications of aspirations to be perhaps a hegemon in the area, their role in Iraq, their role in Syria, in Lebanon as well. And I can tell you, and I think you’ve heard it already, that there is real fear among the GCC countries about where all of this is going. All of them have minorities, in one case it’s not a minority, it’s a majority of Shias, and as the Sheika correctly pointed out, they can’t exchange Iran for some place else.”
—General Joseph P. Hoar (USMC, Ret.), former commander of U.S. Central Command (1991-94), National Council On U.S.-Arab Relations, 17th Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference, October 30, 2008

Middle East Analysis

Iranian Strategy in Iraq: Politics and ‘Other Means’ —Joseph Felter, national security affairs fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University; former director, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC) & Brian Fishman, director of research, CTC
In Iraq’s Diyala Province, U.S. Forces Anticipate Exit —Scott Peterson (The Christian Science Monitor)
Oil for Soil: Toward a Grand Bargain on Iraq and the Kurds —International Crisis Group, Middle East Report N°80

Blair: My Role as Envoy

November 7, 2007

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar Assad (AP)

"The best thing I can do is offer people a strategy to get to a Palestinian state and that means not just obviously the politics of it but also trying to build institutions in the Palestinian side to make sure that we get real change on the ground and to find a way of reuniting Gaza with the West Bank. The next few months will obviously be critical. …

"I hope we will be announcing soon, the economic projects that we are working on with both the Palestinians and the Israelis that will get some real economic movement. …

“Annapolis has got to be the moment where the peace process is reinvigorated properly… You can have a strong document, you can have a strong follow through after Annapolis but one way or another there’s got to be a critical way forward coming out of that… Three weeks out from the conference this is precisely what you’d expect is there’s a lot of difficulty a bit of deadlock and the purpose of the negotiators now is to try and unlock that… The Americans are determined and I’m determined and I think the international community is determined to make the next couple of months successful and to reinvigorate this process and get it moving forward again on all 3 tracks – that’s the political perspective, Palestinian state building and the facts on the ground.” Access the full article>>