Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From Walter Reich
That Israel’s leadership can’t figure out what to do when faced with the challenge of ransoming kidnapped Jews is excusable. That much of that leadership seems to be ignorant of the fact that Jews have given two thousand years of thought to exactly that problem, however, isn’t.
A few weeks ago, in exchange for [...]

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From Josef Joffe
Of course, antisemitism cannot be amusing. How could it be? This darkest of creeds has spawned million-fold death, not to speak of its less murderous forms like discrimination, persecution and expulsion.
But here is a rare instance that might bring at least a bittersweet smile to your face. Then, further below, we’ll get serious [...]

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From Philip Carl Salzman
After modest initiatives in recent days by the Lebanese government to restrict the independent operations of Hezbollah, fighters of Hezbollah and Amal flooded into the streets of west Beirut, attacked and dispersed government fighters, set up road blocks, and occupied government and media offices. The Druze and Christian militias did not act, [...]

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From Philip Carl Salzman
“He must be a spy,” said the visiting Baluch, bearded, turbaned, and baggy in long shirt and trousers. My fellow camp mates of the Dadolzai shrugged. They had accepted me and were past wondering exactly how I got there. “Sure,” I replied; “the government”—whether Iranian or American was left unspecified, “they [...]

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From Andrew Exum
Be sure to read the speech given on Monday by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to the Association of American Universities in Washington.
Since 9/11, the U.S. and its allies have been involved in two prolonged counter-insurgency campaigns in both Iraq and Afghanistan. These wars are low-tech conflicts in which anthropological skills and language [...]

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From MESH Admin
The Internet and Democracy Project at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School, has just published a new study, Mapping Iran’s Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere. The image below is the resulting map of the Iranian blogosphere (click on the image for a larger view). From [...]

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From Philip Carl Salzman
“America’s current policies represent a fundamental departure from [America's] centuries-old tradition,” concludes Michael B. Oren in a recent op-ed. In previous interventions in the Middle East, “American military action was seen as an ancillary to—rather than as a substitute for—diplomacy. And in no case did U.S. troops remain on Middle Eastern [...]

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