Current Analysis Strategic Commodity 101 Every US president since Jimmy Carter has spoken earnestly of the need to wean America from “foreign oil,” which is often more bluntly called “Middle East oil.” After the September 11, 2001 attacks and the resulting spotlight on Saudi Arabia, the clamor grew, only to subside, and now has resurfaced Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis COIN vs. CT? On January 5, amid much pomp and circumstance, President Barack Obama released the newest version of the US Defense Strategic Guidance. [http://www.defense.gov/news/Defense_Strategic_Guidance.pdf] The document delineated the future course of US defense strategy, reiterating the commitment of the US Laleh Khalili • 3 min read
Current Analysis The Siren Song of Ron Paul Say Ron Paul were actually elected president. Say that, in his proverbial first 100 days, he used his bully pulpit to push for two things: deep cuts in aid to Israel and other US allies, and elimination [http://www.grist.org/article/paul1] of Federal subsidies for alternative energy research. Which Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis Better Ten Years Late Than Never At long last, after a few false starts and much gnashing of teeth, MERIP is entering the blogosphere. The blog is intended to be what most blogs run by publications are: a place for our editors and writers to post short pieces of analysis or commentary on important issues in the public eye. We will Chris Toensing • 1 min read
Current Analysis Hip-Hop of the Revolution (The Sharif Don't Like It) In Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World, journalist Robin Wright describes and analyzes what she considers an important new trend in the Muslim world: the rejection of “Muslim extremists.” She views the Arab uprisings that began in Tunisia in December 2010 and quickly spread Ted Swedenburg • 6 min read
Current Analysis Sightings of the Egyptian Deep State The turbulence that has hit Egypt since mid-November seems, at first glance, mostly a testament to the poor performance of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in handling the transition away from the rule of Husni Mubarak. Having assumed power on February 10, the SCAF moved quickly to att Issandr El Amrani • 13 min read
Current Analysis Ratcheting Up the Rhetoric on Iran Nothing is certain except for death and taxes. But in campaign season, it’s awfully predictable that Democratic politicians will do a little chest thumping about foreign policy. As the 2012 presidential contest approaches, the Obama administration is ratcheting up its rhetoric against Iran, right on Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis Narrowing the Options on the Table Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s foreign minister and former representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is not usually a sarcastic man. But he became one in early November following several days of leaks about the negative content of a pending IAEA report on Iran. “Marg yek bar, shivan Farideh Farhi • 14 min read
Current Analysis A New Clarity for Washington Conventional wisdom holds that Washington is one of the big losers in the 2011 upheavals across the Arab world. Two long-time allies, Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Mubarak, have fallen, and in their place elections have empowered Islamists, precisely as the deposed dictators had warned for decades. Another Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Egypt's Intense Election Eve Residents of Cairo’s Darb al-Ahmar neighborhood have gathered at a streetside café on a late October Friday night to get their first glimpse of a political party founded by revolutionary activists. Men play backgammon and sip from their glasses of tea as members of al-‘Adl, one of 35 new parties vyi Nate Wright • 22 min read
Current Analysis Tunisia Moves to the Next Stage Tunisia was the first Arab country to have a pro-democracy uprising in the winter of 2010-2011, and now it is the first to have held an election. Tunisians took to the polls on October 23 to choose a constituent assembly that will be tasked with drafting the country’s first democratic constitution a Issandr El Amrani, Ursula Lindsey • 15 min read
Current Analysis Debunking the Iran "Terror Plot" At a press conference on October 11, the Obama administration unveiled a spectacular charge against the government of Iran: The Qods Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, right in Washington, DC, in a plac Gareth Porter • 19 min read
