Diplomacy and International Politics

"The total potential annual costs of climate change direct damage impacts under the highest emissions scenario, the report says, would reach $2.8 billion a year by 2040 and a staggering $23 billion a year by 2080. The total cumulative costs of direct damage impacts and forgone economic growth potential would reach figures that are almost incomprehensible for a small state like Lebanon: $139 billion by 2080..."

An audio recording of a public address by Ian Shapiro, Sterling Professor of Political Science and Director of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University.

"The sudden eruption of the mass protests during the past two weeks was triggered by the garbage problem, which itself captured the deeper weaknesses of the political system that finally caused deep and daily pain in the lives of every citizen — and citizens recognized that the problem was in the nature of the moribund governance system that was manned by their sectarian leaders. So Lebanon now faces a direct confrontation between these two strong forces: on the one hand, an angry, embittered citizenry that cannot long endure the discomfort of lack of essential services and the indignity of the apparent uncaring attitude of the government, and, on the other, a powerful political elite that will fight back to protect its privileges."

An audio recording from Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.

On April 29, 2015 at MEI, Prof. Stephen Walt assessed U.S. policy and interests in the Middle East, arguing that scaled back involvement might yield better results for the U.S. and the region.

"One of the surprising aspects of following U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East from within the United States, as I have done for several months now on an extended visit, is the peculiar gap between ordinary citizens’ sentiments and the fact that the United States is actively militarily engaged in several countries in the region. This dangerous trend means that the American president — it does not matter which party he is from, because they both act similarly irresponsibly abroad — can continue to use the country’s enormous capabilities to wage war around the world at will."

"Analysts in the United States this week are debating the precise meaning of the statements Wednesday by John Allen, the ex-Marine general who now coordinates the U.S.-led coalition’s response to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). He said that the United States is not coordinating with the Free Syrian Army, and instead plans to develop from scratch new local ground units in Iraq and Syria to fight ISIS on two fronts."

"Absent effective political institutions, efforts to move from authoritarian to more participatory forms of government tend to provoke bitter quarrels between previously advantaged groups and those who have been excluded from wealth or power. In a world where most states are in fact multiethnic or multinational, democratization was bound to provoke greater internal conflicts, at least in the short term."

"The American-led air attacks against ISIS in Iraq and Syria have triggered new debates in the United States about how the U.S. should respond to this and other challenges in faraway lands that may or may not directly threaten American interests. I have had enjoyable and substantive discussions with students and faculty at the University of Oklahoma this week, in which this question has come up repeatedly — and understandably so, given that most Americans had felt that their country was withdrawing from its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than re-engaging in new combat action."

"The USA TODAY/Pew Research Center poll published a few days ago showed that a 52%-37% majority of Americans felt the United States had mostly failed to achieve its goals in Iraq, which is a reversal of the 56%-33% majority that had said in November 2011, as the U.S. was leaving that smashed country, that the U.S. had mostly succeeded in Iraq. A nearly identical 52%-37% majority of Americans felt that the U.S. had mostly failed to achieve its goals in Afghanistan, where the Taliban today are resurgent and the Afghan government is rather shaky. The American public in 2003 had thought by a 3-1 ratio that the Afghanistan war was the right decision, but today, by 52%-38%, Americans say it was the wrong decision."