Diplomacy and International Politics

Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian recounts his 544 days in an Iranian prison during a talk with R. Nicholas Burns of the Harvard Kennedy School.

The fall of Aleppo is a human catastrophe. It’s also a demonstration of the perils of choosing the middle course in a military conflict. Sometimes it’s possible to talk and fight at the same time. But in Syria, the U.S. decision to pursue a dual-track, halfway approach made the mayhem worse.

In this issue, the Belfer Center is pleased to feature the contributions of Hedi Larbi, the 2015–2016 Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar at the Middle East Initiative. During his stay, Larbi led a dynamic study group of students, fellows, and faculty in examining social contracts. In 2014–2015, he served as Minister of Economic Infrastructure and Sustainable Development and as Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister of Tunisia.

Inspired by her Lebanese heritage and childhood visits to family in Lebanon during a tense occupation period in the 1980s and 90s, Amanda Rizkallah has devoted her dissertation research to unravelling the complications of a post-war Lebanon.

The concept of "ignoring" refers not only to actions by regime officials but also captures protesters’ perceptions of those actions. Examples of ignoring include not communicating with protesters, issuing condescending statements, physically evading protesters, or acting with contempt toward popular mobilization. Existing conceptual tools do not adequately capture these dynamics. By integrating protesters’ perceptions of the behavior of the targets of mobilization, not just of the security forces, the concept of “ignoring” helps explain protesters’ reactions and their future mobilization, in a way that conventional concepts such as tolerance cannot capture.

More than 40 Harvard students traveled to the Middle East over the winter break to assess–firsthand–the rehabilitation needs of Syrian refugees in Jordan and alternative energy and environmental challenges and opportunities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Belfer Center’s Middle East Initiative supported the field visits.

Israeli election results promise more settlements and warnings on Iran, with scant chance of a Palestinian state, Walt says

Atiyeh Vahidmanesh became inspired to focus her research on the inequality of educational opportunity after hearing her Virginia Tech advisor and former Belfer Center Visiting Scholar, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, speak on the issue at a seminar. Salehi-Isfahani also introduced her to the Belfer Center, where she then applied for a research fellowship with the Middle East Initiative through its new Emirates Leadership Initiative. Vahidmanesh, a PhD student in economics at Virginia Tech, describes her research as somewhat interdisciplinary between economics and education.