6 Items

Audio

Podcast: "The Middle East at the Precipice: Challenges and Imperatives for Egypt and the Region" with Nabil Fahmy

April 16, 2015

An audio recording from Nabil Fahmy, former Foreign Minister of Egypt and Dean, School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP), Professor of Practice in International Diplomacy, American University Cairo.

On April 15, 2015 at MEI, Minister Nabil Fahmy presented his assessent of the challenges facing the Middle East today and laid out his vision for the region to confront those challenges and seize opportunities, with special focus on Egypt's role in the Arab world and Middle East at large, in a public address moderated by Kennedy School professor Nicholas Burns.

Camels are seen beyond an oil well near the Khurais oil facility in an area where operations are being expanded, about 60 miles southeast of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

(AP Photo)

Analysis & Opinions - Reuters

Determinants of a New Saudi Oil Policy

December 2, 2014

After OPEC's announcement last week that it would not be cutting production, oil prices fell dramatically. Given the significant global oversupply due to the U.S. shale oil boom and decreased demand in China and Europe, this decision marks an historical moment in which OPEC relinquishes its supply-based approach to price manipulation and embraces a market-based approach. Wisely, the organization has shown that it is aware it can no longer dictate oil prices by attempting to control the market.

As the leader of OPEC, Saudi Arabia is the engineer of this new approach. Indeed, at the OPEC summit the kingdom blocked calls from OPEC and non-OPEC producers, such as Russia, Venezuela, Mexico and Iran, who were urging production cuts in the hopes of raising prices in order to stabilize their oil revenues. It is important to understand why Saudi Arabia is so staunchly advocating this new market-based approach.

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Analysis & Opinions - Politico

A Strategy for Beating the Islamic State

    Author:
  • Dennis Ross
| September 2, 2014

We don’t have a strategy yet.” With those words, President Obama seems to have encapsulated everything that his critics have been alleging for months: that he’s improvising, halting and altogether slow to react to the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, the brutal terrorist group that has seized much of Iraq and Syria and on Tuesday claimed to have beheaded a second American journalist, Steven Sotloff. And certainly, the president’s detractors have pounced on his poorly chosen word