MER Article Syria's Curious Dilemma Seasoned observers of Syria have learned not to make much of apparent political changes in the country. This lesson holds true today, but with a twist. Bassam Haddad • 17 min read
Current Analysis Cracks in the Yemeni System The sudden announcement by Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Salih that he will step down in 2006 in favor of “young blood” has set the country and the region abuzz. Having led the northern Yemen Arab Republic from 1978, and then assumed the presidency of the whole of Yemen following the Sarah Phillips • 13 min read
Current Analysis Killing Live 8, Noisily The organizers of Live 8, the week-long, celebrity-driven musical campaign for increased aid and debt relief for poverty-stricken nations, plugged their July 6 concert in an Edinburgh stadium as “a celebration of the largest and loudest cry to make poverty history the world has ever seen.” By rush hour the Sheila Carapico • 8 min read
Current Analysis Reform Retreats Amid Jordan's Political Storms For weeks in the spring of 2005, banners advertising an international gathering at the Dead Sea resort of Shouna adorned every main street in Jordan’s capital city of Amman. The government was touting what it regarded as a significant national success: for the third year in a row, the Curtis Ryan • 10 min read
MER Article The Tar Baby of Foreign Aid In his 2005 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush, hailing “the beginnings of reform and democracy in the Palestinian territories,” pledged $350 million in US aid to the Palestinian Authority. One day before the heralded meeting of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian P Charmaine Seitz • 14 min read
MER Article QIZs, FTAs, USAID, and the MEFTA Jordan is the poster child for the Bush administration project of “transforming” the political order in the Middle East through free trade. If Jordan is any guide, however, economic liberalization does not lead inexorably to the diffusion of political power. Pete Moore • 12 min read
Current Analysis The IMF and the Future of Iraq On November 21, 2004, the 19 industrialized nations that make up the so-called Paris Club issued a decision that, in effect, traces the outline of Iraq's economic future. The decision concerns a portion of Iraq's $120 billion sovereign debt—a staggering amount that all concerned parties recognize is Zaid Al-Ali • 12 min read
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 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 Hard Time in the Heartland On April 16, 2003, George W. Bush visited the shop floor at the Boeing plant in St. Louis, Missouri. His 90-minute appearance drew several hundred men and women who help make the military's $48 million F-18 Hornet fighters, 36 of which were deployed during the Iraq war. The purpose of Bush's visit w Ian Urbina • 10 min read
Current Analysis Egypt's Summer of Discontent As the long, hot Egyptian summer of 2003 wore on into autumn, gloom-and-doom scenarios filled opposition papers and daily conversations, warning of a terrible quiet before the storm. Elites and the masses are slowly being pushed together by palpable disaffection at rapidly deteriorating economic con Mona El-Ghobashy • 12 min read
MER Article A Clean Slate in Iraq Iraq has the world’s second largest oil reserves, but before the 2003 war its human development indicators placed it only just ahead of Sudan and Bangladesh. [1] The war and its ongoing aftermath have left Iraq further shattered. At the most basic level, diseases of poverty are again sweeping Colin Rowat, Justin Alexander • 14 min read
