Current Analysis Hamas Back Out of Its Box Every year or so the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas confounds the Western policymakers who have worked to deny it power since its electoral triumph in January 2006. If the goal of Western policy is to keep the Islamists out of sight, out of mind, then Hamas is like a jack-in-the-box, periodical Nicolas Pelham • 14 min read
Current Analysis Rebranding the Iraq War The war in Iraq is over. Or so the government and most media outlets will claim on September 1, by which time thousands of US troops will have departed the land of two rivers for other assignments. With this phase of the drawdown, says President Barack Obama, "America's combat mission will end." The Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis Turkey's Search for Regional Power Under the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey is carving out a greater role for itself in Middle Eastern affairs. Since 2008, Turkey has sought the role of Middle East intermediary in trying to broker a peace agreement between Israel and Syria and to resolve the Iranian nuclear Yuksel Taskin • 14 min read
Current Analysis Disaster Strikes the Indus River Valley The flooding of most of the Indus River valley in Pakistan has the makings of a history-altering catastrophe. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that 20 million Pakistanis are in dire need, many of them homeless or displaced, others cut off from help by falle The Editors • 11 min read
Current Analysis The UN Rises Above Its Origins Mark Mazower, No Enchanted Palace: The End Of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010) Stephen Schlesinger, Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2003) Ian Williams • 17 min read
Current Analysis The PKK and the Closure of Turkey's Kurdish Opening At a community hall in Diyarbakır, a majority-Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey, a shrine is draped with the illegal flag of the Kurdistan Workers Party, otherwise known as the PKK. On top of the flag is a framed photograph of Özgür Dağhan, a young man who died fighting for the outlawed rebel grou Alexander Christie-Miller • 17 min read
Current Analysis Travesty in Progress At 23, Omar Khadr is the youngest of the 176 people still imprisoned at the US military’s detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He has been there for eight years, one third of his life. A Canadian, he is the only citizen of a Western country remaining in detention, Lisa Hajjar • 27 min read
Current Analysis Ethno-Sectarian Approach Likely to Have Lasting Consequences Which American has done the most harm to Iraq in the twenty-first century? The competition is stiff, with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and L. Paul Bremer, among others, to choose from. But, given his game efforts to grab the spotlight, it seems churlish not to state the case for Vice Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis "We Are All Jordan"...But Who Is We? Like most countries around the world, Jordan has been gripped with World Cup fever. Since their national team was not in the tournament, Jordanians rallied around perennial favorites Brazil, Italy, Argentina and Germany. They advertised their loyalties with flags draped over windows, balconies, cars and shoulders, and traded half-joking taunts Curtis Ryan • 15 min read
Current Analysis Obama's Nuclear Postures In his first official statement after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, President Harry Truman claimed the new weapon as a fundamental breakthrough in military capability and a uniquely American achievement. The Hiroshima bomb, he said, was “more than two thousand times the blast power of…the largest bomb ever yet Zia Mian • 16 min read
Current Analysis Jordan's Risky Business As Usual Political reformers in Jordan are struck by a sense of déjà vu. Jordan has been parliament-free since November 2009, when King ‘Abdallah II dissolved the legislature for not moving fast enough on his program of economic reform. The deputies had yet served even half of their four-year terms. Since th Jillian Schwedler • 14 min read
Current Analysis It's Time for Israel to Lift the Gaza Siege Why would the Israeli navy commandeer boats carrying collapsible wheelchairs and bags of cement to the Gaza Strip? Israel says that the aid convoys are trying to "break the blockade" of the densely populated Palestinian enclave. But why is there a blockade in the first place? Sen. Chuck Schumer, an Bayann Hamid • 3 min read
