Current Analysis Downsizing Saddam's Odious Debt In a surprise move on December 5, 2003, George W. Bush named James Baker as a special envoy charged with seeking "the restructuring and reduction" of $130 billion in foreign debt piled up by the regime of Saddam Hussein. Until Baker's appointment, the United States and Justin Alexander • 12 min read
Current Analysis If Kerry Wins, Little Will Change in US Middle East Policy The victory of John Kerry in the Democratic Party primaries following Super Tuesday this week leads to an observation. To a remarkable degree, the urgent desire to deny George W. Bush a second term in the White House has papered over the schisms in the broad Democrat church, even enticing many membe Chris Toensing • 5 min read
Current Analysis Headscarves and the French Tricolor France is in the process of passing a law that would ban "signs and dress that ostensibly denote the religious belonging of students" in public elementary and high schools beginning in the 2004-2005 school year. Lawmakers are scheduled to vote on the bill on February 3. According to Paul Silverstein • 14 min read
Current Analysis Round 12 for Iran's Reformists When, in mid-January 2004, the Council of Guardians rejected the applications of 3,600 out of nearly 8,200 people seeking candidacy in Iran's upcoming parliamentary elections, there was scant surprise in the country. President Mohammad Khatami, members of his government and sitting parliamentary deputies professed to be Kaveh Ehsani • 8 min read
Current Analysis Behind the Battles Over Middle East Studies An ideological campaign to reshape the academic study of the Middle East in the United States has begun to bear fruit on Capitol Hill. In late 2003, the House of Representatives passed legislation which would, for the first time, mandate that university-based Middle East studies centers “foster deba Zachary Lockman • 20 min read
Current Analysis The Guantánamo "Black Hole" Since January 2002, over 700 persons from 42 different countries have been detained without charge or right to counsel by the United States at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. While many detainees were captured by the US on battlefields in Afghanistan in late 2001, an unknown number of others were delivered Scott Cutler Shershow, Scott Michaelsen • 11 min read
Current Analysis The Specter of Sectarian and Ethnic Unrest in Iraq The ominous specter of sectarian and ethnic unrest in Iraq is growing more visible as the country struggles to forge a new identity and system of rule in the wake of Saddam Hussein's downfall. Though such unrest did not explode immediately after the end of the former regime, Nicholas Blanford • 10 min read
Current Analysis Sharon's Unilateral Steps As the Israeli army reimposed a nearly complete lockdown on the West Bank in the aftermath of the Christmas Day 2003 suicide bombing outside of Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has reportedly deputized a top general to draw up the "separation plan" he threatened seven days Joel Beinin • 10 min read
Current Analysis To Deny Iran Atomic Weapons, Create a Nuclear-Free Region The 12-year standoff between Saddam Hussein’s former regime and the US displayed a circular logic: the Iraqi refusal to “come clean” about possibly non-existent weaponry simultaneously fed, and fed off of, Washington’s belligerence toward Iraq. With most eyes on the denouement of that malign symbios Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Iraqi Food Security in Hands of Occupying Powers After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the UN Security Council's imposition of comprehensive economic sanctions upon Iraq, the former Iraqi government assembled a food ration database, which was later expanded under the UN's so-called Oil for Food program. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and Iraqi Shiite Nathaniel Hurd • 11 min read
Current Analysis The Israeli Text and Context of the Geneva Accord The Geneva Accord, the latest unofficial framework for Israeli-Palestinian peace made public in mid-October 2003, has not become the basis for official negotiations. But the initiative has already been successful in one respect: it has uncorked as many vocal hopes as it has protests among Israelis and Palestinians, even though Shiko Behar, Michael Warschawski • 10 min read
Current Analysis Iran's Upcoming Parliamentary Elections Up for Grabs So confident are Iranian conservatives three months before the country's February 20, 2004 parliamentary elections that, in the words of one right-wing strategist, they have stopped talking about how to beat reformist candidates and begun to plan "how to run the nation." Conservatives believe that victory Siamak Namazi • 12 min read
