Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From Stephen Peter Rosen and Martin Kramer

Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH) is open for business. Why do we think there’s a need for another weblog, and why at Harvard?

The Middle East today receives saturation coverage in the mainstream and alternative media, journals, and books. But we feel there’s no such thing as too much informed debate over long-term U.S. strategy, because so much is at stake. More could be said that isn’t being said, because it doesn’t quite fit the format of the op-ed or article. As a result, some expert insights don’t get captured and disseminated. Check the list of our members. These are people who don’t lack outlets for their longer work, but they haven’t had a place to share pithy analyses and useful pointers. Now they do.

Why at Harvard? That’s where we are, and that’s where this project is based. And for reasons we won’t elaborate, Harvard stands on privileged ground, so that all sorts of people are willing to cooperate under its banner—or, in this case, under its url.

Indeed, we have all sorts of people as members. Today we’re pleased to unveil their names, some forty in all. A few members are now at Harvard and some studied here. The majority are scattered throughout the country, in universities and think tanks. The established ones are already renowned for their contributions to our understanding of the dilemmas that confront the United States in the Middle East. We also have a cadre of talented and promising young people.

We believe that each of our members, at some point, will have something to say that’s best said here. Our task is to show them those opportunities, and to exercise just enough editorial judgment to make sure the site works for them and for you.

Over the next month, we plan to offer our first original content, recruit additional members (we’d like more), and publicize our existence. We urge you to bookmark this website, subscribe to the feed, link to MESH from your own site, and send us your suggestions.