Middle East

This is the premier episode of The Sidebar, the weekly podcast from the New America Foundation that looks at what's in and what's underlying the news. This week, host Pamela Chan talks with Tamar Jacoby, Katherine Zoepf and Dan Meredith about Syria, privacy and immigration.

With the death of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, the United States and Western governments scored a major but still underappreciated victory in the nearly decade-and-a-half-old war against al-Qaeda. Bin Laden’s death did not eliminate all of the features of al-Qaeda that make it dangerous as a factor in terrorism internationally. Its role in assisting regional jihadist groups in strikes against local governments and by inspiring “lone wolf” would-be martyrs in acts of violence will remain with us for many years.  Yet the manner in which U.S.

For the past several years, Italy under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resembled a political comic opera, with a larger-than-life character of ravenous appetites and tragic hubris. But the recent "political death" of Mr Berlusconi represents only the end of Act One. Two more acts remain, and this drama could turn from comedy to tragedy quickly.

Very few of the heroes and villains made famous in the wars of the past decade are women. Of the scant exceptions, two of the most fascinating are the subjects of Deborah Scroggins’s thoughtful double biography, “Wanted Women.”

One is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born thinker and neoconservative darling; the other is Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who, in 2010, was sentenced to 86 years in prison for her assault on American personnel in Afghanistan. She is known as Al Qaeda’s highest-ranking female associate.

 

REMARKS AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY

 

While 2011 will be remembered as a tumultuous year in the Middle East, that most headline-grabbing of regional issues—the Israel-Palestine conflict—barely merits a footnote. The glacial pace of developments on that front could not have been more out of sync with the surrounding frenzy. There has been no Palestinian Spring to date (although there have been weekly demonstrations in Palestinian villages impacted by Israeli land confiscations) and the entire year passed without even a day of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks (those were in part resumed on Jan.

On January 6, 2011, then Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Sharm el Sheikh in an effort to resuscitate the flagging peace process. Egypt for many years played the role of regional protector of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which was extremely heavy on process while being ever-more transparently light on delivering peace. It is a role that the new Egypt is unlikely to volunteer for.

Let us stipulate some ugly facts up front. Iraq remains a weak state. The political institutions are—charitably—immature. The business climate is not overly attractive and corruption is endemic. Were it not for oil, there would be no real economy. There is a serious terrorism problem. Relationships with all the neighboring states are problematic. Sectarian divides remain tense, with some key fault lines unresolved. The country’s armed forces remain incapable of defending its international borders.

United Nations officials have issued a warning that the Government of Israel's plans for Palestinian Bedouin communities living in Jerusalem's periphery could constitute "mass forcible transfers" and "grave breaches" of international law. A pending plan in the West Bank threatens to displace Khan al-Ahmar, a Bedouin village of refugees originally from Israel's south, pushed off their indigenous land in the early 1950's. Khan al-Ahmar lies on the side of a major West Bank thoroughfare and is sandwiched between the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumin and Jerusalem.

As the last American troops leave Iraq (a remarkable phrase, which many once doubted would ever be uttered), two questions come to mind: Was the war worth it? And did we, in any sense, win?

The two questions, of course, are related: The first concerns cost, the second benefits. But however you do the calculation, it's clear that the decision to invade Iraq was a major strategic blunder—and that the policies we pursued in the early months of the occupation tipped the blunder into a catastrophe.