Middle East

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...

John J. Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard...

The stroke that felled Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on January 4, 2006, deprived Israel of its dominant political leader on the eve of critical elections.  For President Bush, the loss of Sharon is compounded by the growing chaos among...

Last year the United States began the process of normalizing relations with Libya after decades of mutual animosity and sanctions disrupted a relationship that goes back 200 years, to when President Thomas Jefferson took our young republic into its...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice concluded her June 2005 tour of the Middle East with a visit to the American University of Cairo. In her talk there, she laid out America’s commitment to promoting liberal, democratic government in the...

Has Arab satellite television had a positive impact on the prospects for democracy in the Arab world? Yes, and in more ways than one might imagine. News in the Arab World Before the Age of Satellite TV Little more...

During the past two years the United States has launched several major initiatives intended to remake the Middle East as part of the War on Terrorism.  This included the overthrow of Saddam and the political reconstruction of Iraq; the...

Speaking in Canada on December 1, 2004, President Bush detailed his foreign policy objectives for his next term.  First, he would build and rebuild international coalitions; second, he would pursue vigorously the war on terrorism; third, he would enhance...

Arnold J. Toynbee, a British delegate at the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference, records an anecdote about the annoyance caused there by the flamboyant personal diplomacy of T. E. Lawrence. Though a British subject, Lawrence was a member of the...

Kaplan delivered this talk as the keynote in FPRI’s two-day History Institute for Teachers on the New Middle East held October 16-17, 2004. Other speakers included Beth Baron, City University of New York; Eric Davis, Rutgers University; Michael S. Doran (see video), Princeton University; Najib Ghadbian, University of...