Stay Informed

Sign up to receive the Middle East Bulletin!

Support Middle East Progress

In-Depth Coverage

Original Commentaries

11/20/08
Pakistan: Learning the Right Lessons from Iraq  —Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-PA), Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Original Commentary for Middle East Bulletin.
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.

Setting the Record Straight

Keeping Focus on Long-Term Objectives

“[W]hile we do need to have a cooperative approach that involves many of our friends and allies in meeting with the Pakistanis, … as we work out with them a rough division of labor, the U.S., I believe, ought to be taking the lead in addressing the issues in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. And given the difficulty of doing so, I suspect that we will not have a great deal of difficulty in convincing them to allow us to take the lead there. But as we all know, there is a real tension between our short-term tactical aims in trying to capture or kill terrorists across the border and militants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and our longer- term counterinsurgency pacification goals. We very much need to be focusing on the end state. What is it that we want this area to look like? ... In that context we need to have a common agenda with the Pakistani government and very much to include the military on counterinsurgency in that area. There needs to be, therefore, a focus on combining military efforts with economic, development and political development in those areas.”
—Robert L. Grenier, managing director and chairman for Global Security Consulting, Kroll, event, “Partnership for Progress: Advancing a New Strategy for Prosperity and Stability in Pakistan and the Region,” Center for American Progress, November 17, 2008

Middle East Analysis

The Implications of Failure

December 7, 2007
"To the stupid claim that there is no harm in trying, the answer is that whereas the Annapolis process is in no way injurious to the Palestinian case, it weakens Israel's position when and if we finally sit down with some real, and not virtual, Palestinian representatives to negotiate. Everything will have already been conceded, and another lame excuse will have been added to the list explaining why the government is not fulfilling its duty to protect the citizens of the western Negev."
--Moshe Arens, former Israeli Defense Minister and member of the Likud party, op-ed in Haaretz, November 21, 2007
  • I think the Israeli public does not fully understand the implications of failure. There is a question mark over how long the paradigm of two states for two people will continue to be a viable option. I don't want to speak in apocalyptic terms, but if there is no option of two states for two peoples, then there is no option for a Jewish and democratic Israel. Secondly, if this process fails, it is only a matter of time before Hamas takes over the West Bank, and with Iraq to the east and Hamas to the west, the stability of Jordan becomes problematic. On the other hand, the new American-led pragmatic axis in the Middle East is unified around three goals: stopping Iran going nuclear; confronting radical terror in its al-Qaeda-Sunni or Hizballah-Shi'a forms; reaching a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of two states for two peoples. And we need to do just about anything for this process to succeed.
    --Ami Ayalon, former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief, Commander of the Israeli Navy and currently Minister Without Portfolio, interview with The Jerusalem Report, Issue 17, December 10, 2007