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

Partnership for Progress —Caroline Wadhams, Brian Katulis, Lawrence J. Korb & Colin Cookman, Center for American Progress
Dealing With Pakistan Is Risky Business —Lee H. Hamilton, president, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, former chairman, House Foreign Affairs Committee
How Not to Lose Afghanistan (and Pakistan) —Peter Bergen, senior fellow, New America Foundation

A Balancing Act With Iran

January 23, 2008

"We should have no illusions. Discussions with the Islamic Republic are unlikely to produce in the short run the kind of productive outcomes we might wish for. ... Yet serious negotiations may elicit areas of common interest that lurk behind walls of hostility and distrust."

The Baghdad meetings between Ambassadors Ryan Crocker and Hassan Kazemi-Qomi in May and July of 2007 marked the first official bilateral American-Iranian contacts since relations were formally broken during the U.S. embassy hostage crisis in April 1980. Previous contacts, productive or not, had been indirect, clandestine, or part of some multilateral framework. Earlier attempts to establish official dialogue had foundered on pervading suspicions and the view that “now is not the time” and “if they want to talk, then they must be up to something.” …

Talking to Iran may be difficult and perhaps unpleasant. There are, however, some points that are worth remembering and that might help avoid some of the missteps that have doomed previous attempts to hold conversations. Access the full article>>