The IAEA and Iran’s Face-Saving Solution

Senior officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will meet with Iranian counterparts in Tehran on December 13. The IAEA is prepared to visit a building located at Parchin, a site that Iran says is a conventional military facility but where the IAEA believes Tehran may have carried out tests related to the development […]

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Preventing Politics in Egypt

From the moment when Hosni Mubarak fell from power in February 2011, few issues have proved more divisive in Egyptian politics than the writing of a new constitution. Now, even though the formal process is theoretically coming to an end, the battle over the constitution is drawing the country dangerously close to an all-out civil […]

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Bye-Bye, Middle East?

For some time now, a certain strategic vision has been gaining traction: the United States is becoming energy-independent, paving the way for its political retreat from the Middle East and justifying its strategic “pivot” toward Asia. This view seems intuitively correct, but is it? Energy-hungry America has long depended on the global market to meet […]

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The Trouble With Democracy, From Cairo To Johannesburg

The return of protests, tanks and death to the streets of Cairo this week is harrowing. So is the power of the rampant conspiracy theories that cause Muslim Brotherhood members and their secular opponents to sincerely believe they are defending Egypt’s revolution. Both sides are behaving abominably. Criticisms of President Mohamed Mursi’s foolish and unnecessary […]

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The Fog of Cyberwar

In mid-2010, thousands of centrifuges, enriching uranium at Iranian nuclear research facilities, spun out of control. The instruments were mysteriously reprogrammed to operate faster than normal, pushing them to the breaking point. Iranian computer systems, however, inexplicably reported that the centrifuges were operating normally. This incident, it was later revealed, was the work of the […]

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Egypt Demonstrators Reject Mursi Call For Dialogue

Demonstrators rejected a call from Egypt’s Islamist President Mohamed Mursi for a national dialogue after deadly clashes around his palace, demanding the “downfall of the regime” – the chant that brought down Hosni Mubarak. Mursi said in a televised speech late on Thursday that plans were on track for a referendum on a new constitution […]

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Would It Matter If Iran Got The Bomb?

The debate on Iran and its nuclear program does little credit to the U.S. foreign policy community, because much of it rests on dubious assumptions that do not stand up to even casual scrutiny. Lots of ink, pixels, and air-time has been devoted to discussing whether Iran truly wants a bomb, how close it might […]

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