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

Mideast Peace: Key to Preserving U.S. Regional Interests

June 12, 2008

"I think Israel's security has got to come first there and I think that ... in many ways this is a zero-sum game, that when we as a government spend our time and our energy and our effort on something like what I think is a misguided attempt right now to come to an agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, when I don't believe the Palestinians are ready for such an agreement. ... [W]hen we spend our time and our energy and our efforts focused so intensively on that kind of—of an arrangement, we do not have the time and the attention and the energy that we need and we ought to have focused on Iran. It's a zero-sum game for us and I think we need to make different choices."
-Elizabeth Cheney, former Deputy Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, AIPAC Policy Conference Round Table, June 2, 2008

"The effort of General Dayton to build a strong effective professional military force for the Palestinians is succeeding; it's a story of success. What it shows you—that when the United States of America wanted something will be done and insisted upon it, it happens and it succeeds. … And the last word about the American perspective and here you know it better than I do but I will say it. There is no way to preserve the American interest in the Middle East as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not resolved."
--Former Deputy Defense Minister Brigadier General (ret.) Ephraim Sneh, AIPAC Policy Conference Round Table, June 2, 2008