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

Base Barrier on Security

August 7, 2008

Yossi Alpher, coeditor, bitterlemons family of internet publications, former director, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, "Hard Questions, Tough Answers," Americans for Peace Now, July 28, 2008:

“At the time the Jerusalem security barrier was built, many Israeli security experts … pointed out that the wall was attaching 230,000 Palestinians to Israel and detaching them from the West Bank in a way that was sure to spell trouble. Only in Jerusalem has the barrier attached to a Jewish city large numbers of Palestinians; everywhere else it is designed to separate Jews and Arabs. It’s not too late to move the wall in Jerusalem. Such an act could dovetail perfectly with a government of Israel decision to recognize Arab East Jerusalem as the capital city of a Palestinian state. Only in Greater Jerusalem does the barrier … follow not security and demographic logic but rather ideology—the claim of ‘united Jerusalem, eternal capital of Israel.’ But Jerusalem is not united and never has been. Um Tuba has absolutely nothing to do with the capital of Israel. How many more desperate acts of senseless terror will be required for Israelis and their leaders to tune into this reality?”