Nuclear Issues

The Belfer Center's Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns, Ashraf Hegazy, Joseph S. Nye, and Stephen Walt consider the U.S.'s shifting foreign policy in the Middle East.

"In the years since the September 11 attacks and the onset of crisis in Iraq, Iran's consolidation of its political-security role in the Middle East, and its impact upon regional and international security systems has been the focus of attention in international and Middle East security studies. The prevailing view in the West and the Arab world is that new political-security and geopolitical developments have changed the balance in regional power and political structure in favor of Iran. Accordingly, this situation has had negative effects on the United States' strategic interests, its regional allies in the Arab world, and on Israel's position. During recent decades, preserving a 'balance of power' policy between the regional actors has been the basis of American foreign policies in the region, especially in the Persian Gulf. The recent developments have unbalanced power equations in favor of Iran."

BEIRUT -- This week’s sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States sees the top American military and diplomatic officials in Iraq speaking to the US Congress about American strategy in Iraq. The juxtaposition is noteworthy: Six years ago, a small band of Al-Qaeda militants attacked the United States and killed some 3000 people. Today, an army of over 160,000 American troops wages a war in Iraq that has seen tens of thousands of people killed since 2003. Neither policy makes much sense to anyone in the world, other than to those fanatics on both sides who decided to pursue these actions.

The United Nations should thoroughly review its optimum role in a transforming world, because its existing contradictory policies risk damaging its credibility and efficacy for years to come.

Dr. Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall's article in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.

"As yet, no one has devised a fully effective counter-terrorism policy, or for winning in Iraq, or for dealing with Iran. Indeed, there probably is no one single policy, but a cumulative combination of various different approaches."

"...the Bush administration's foreign policy rests on a deep misreading of contemporary world politics. Conducting foreign policy on the basis of flawed premises is like designing an airplane while ignoring gravity...."

"International history has witnessed trends toward and away from the amalgamation of disparate political units—in Europe and elsewhere...."

As the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks become a more distant memory, many Americans comfort themselves with the thought that 9/11 was a freak accident or a 100-year flood.