Current Analysis Into Egypt's Uncharted Territory Amidst the monumental Egyptian popular uprising of 2011, Plan A for the Egyptian regime and the Obama administration was for Husni Mubarak to remain president of Egypt indefinitely. They have now moved on to Plan B. Hesham Sallam, Joshua Stacher, Chris Toensing • 12 min read
MER Article The Politics of Aid to Iraqi Refugees in Jordan The school in Dahiyat Amir Hasan in East Amman is only half-finished, but even through the rubble and the clouds of concrete dust it is clear that the education there will be very different than in Jordan’s other government-run schools. The classrooms are spacious and positioned around multi-purpose Nicholas Seeley • 18 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 Egypt Stifles Debate in the United States The Egyptian regime has once again succeeded in stifling freedom of speech, this time not in Egypt, but in the US. Earlier this month, an Egyptian court convicted a prominent Egyptian-American activist for his outspoken criticism of the regime’s poor human rights record in American public fora. The Bayann Hamid • 2 min read
Current Analysis Disengagement and the Frontiers of Zionism In mid-January, when Israel further tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip, it hurriedly assured the world that a “humanitarian crisis” would not be allowed to occur. Case in point: Days after the intensified siege prompted Hamas to breach the Gaza-Egypt border and Palestinians to pour into Egypt Darryl Li • 13 min read
Current Analysis Humanitarian Crisis in Lebanon is Huge After passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 and the ensuing "cessation of hostilities," hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese are venturing across bombed roads and bridges returning to their destroyed homes and villages in the south. Although Israel’s aerial bombardment h Samia Mehrez • 2 min read
Current Analysis Hurting Peace, Not Hamas As President George W. Bush said in his second inaugural address, and as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last summer at the American University in Cairo: “America will not impose our style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, to attain the Michelle Woodward • 3 min read
Current Analysis Foreboding About the Future in Yemen Within days of Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Salih’s departure in January to Germany for medical care, the regime’s next most prominent personality, Sheikh Abdallah bin Hussein al-Ahmar, left for Saudi Arabia. At the Sanaa airport, al-Ahmar, speaker of the Yemeni parliament, head of Islah, the country’s most Sarah Phillips • 14 min read
MER Article Transportational Contiguity Israel seems to have gotten the message that Palestinian land, in any final resolution to the conflict, cannot simply be divided into isolated cantons. But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon still intends to hold onto large chunks of the West Bank. How can Israel link Palestinian enclaves and dampen critic Robert Blecher • 3 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
MER Article Iraq Reconstruction Tracker “War began last week,” said the New York Times on March 23, 2003. “Reconstruction starts this week.” In fact, the Bush administration had been soliciting proposals to “reconstruct” war-torn Iraq before dropping the first bomb, and before asking the UN Security Council to authorize military action. Between January 31 and Adam Horowitz, Elizabeth Rosenberg, Anthony Alessandrini • 6 min read
