E-Notes

In March 2006, Abdul Rahman, an Afghan who converted to Christianity, was charged with apostasy because, in a custody dispute, his wife had reported him to the authorities as a Christian. Had he been found guilty, according to the...

In March 2006, FPRI’s Asia Program held a conference on “Constitutional Change and Foreign Policy in East Asia.” Panels focused on Japan’s contemplated revisions to its “pacifist” constitution; China’s much-amended constitution, the increasing discourse there about constitutionalism, and its...

The war in southern Lebanon revealed significant weaknesses in the posture of the Israeli defense force—and it has important implications for U.S. defense policy. The amorphous Hezbollah, led by Hassan Nasrallah represents a rising threat. Mixing an organized political...

The debates among American strategists before both the first (1991) and the second (2003) Gulf Wars naturally differed, because strategic circumstances differed. But at least one common element—aside from the obvious fact that Iraq was the target of both...

What do George Clooney, Manute Bol, Elie Wiesel, and Olympic speed skater Joey Cheek have in common? They have all publicly called for the UN Genocide Convention of 1948 to be applied to Darfur and for greater intervention to...

Since this is the season for gratuitous and unsolicited advice (see any high school/college graduation ceremony near you), I thought I would join in with some thoughts for General Hayden in his new job at the CIA. I am...

In the run-up to the Iraq war, many of us reasoned that if a successful democracy took root, then this just might establish a model that would replicate itself throughout the region, forever altering the currently highly negative image...

Born circa 1966 in the Bedouin tribe of Bani Hassan in Zarka, Jordan, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. air strike on June 7, near Bakuba, Iraq. Lately known as the “amir” of Al Qaeda in the...

Today’s security environment can be described as “the New Normalcy.” Robert Kaplan has a fine article in the April 2006 Atlantic Monthly titled “The Coming Normalcy?” But his use of the future tense is a bit optimistic. In the...

We in the West have long identified Islam with Arab culture. In one sense this is reasonable enough. After all, the Quran and the canonical accounts of the actions and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed (the Hadith)are all written...