Middle East & North Africa

NPR's All Thing Considered talked to Amanda Sloat, Fellow at the Belfer Center's Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, about Turkey's investigation into the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

"What happens when, after another dozen major attacks, the chain of their barbarism outpaces the chain of our human solidarity? When is the permissible moment to start asking if we can muster as much wisdom and realism to fight terror as we do to harness emotions of solidarity? The recent increasing pace and widening geographic scope of terror suggest we are dealing with a qualitatively new kinds of terrorists — but the policy responses of governments and the emotional responses of entire societies suggest we have no idea how to respond to quell this monster."

We are into the season when you will be flooded with articles and analyses on the 100-year anniversary of the Sykes-Picot agreement that was signed on May 18, 1916. That agreement between Great Britain and France, with Russian acquiescence, defined how they would divide the spoils of the crumbling Ottoman Empire in the East Mediterranean region.

Future of Diplomacy Project and Middle East Initiative Faculty Director R. Nicholas Burns spoke with Doug Gavel at Harvard Kennedy School about the Syrian refugee crisis and the recent House of Representatives' vote.

"The agreement between Turkey and the United States on a yet-to-be-defined plan to establish a 60-mile-long zone in northern Syria adjacent to the frontier with Turkey anticipates that their troops, artillery, drones and jet fighters, working with selected Syrian rebels on the ground inside Syria, will keep the area free of “Islamic State” (IS) control. This move is at once decisive and dangerous. It positions two of the world’s and the region’s leading military powers, and NATO members, within half a dozen major local fighting forces of very different ideologies, and hundreds of smaller units with equally kaleidoscopic goals, identities and allegiances."

In this July 15, 2015 Financial Times op-ed, Nicholas Burns reacts to the Iran nuclear deal announced yesterday in Vienna.

In it, he outlines his support for what he believes is a sensible agreement and is the best alternative available to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

But, he recognizes the drawbacks, including important questions about the strength of inspections and our ability to re-impose sanctions on Iran should that become necessary. He also warns that the U.S. will have to launch a long term containment effort against Iran given its assertive push for power in the heart of the Sunni world. 

Still, Burns believes, freezing Iran's nuclear program for the next decade is a better path for us than if we had walked away.  In that case, the sanctions regime would have likely frayed and the P-5 coalition against Iran would have weakened.  All of the current restrictions on Iran's nuclear program would also have been lifted.  Obama's deal is stronger than the "No Deal" scenario championed by many of his critics.

Professor Burns and International Rescue Committee President (and former British Foreign Secretary) David Miliband co-authored this Washington Post op-ed on the desperate humanitarian disaster unfolding in Syria.

In it, they describe the extraordinary scale of violence and disorder in Syria today--over 220,00 people killed in the vicious civil war; over 11 million people--half the population- now homeless; civilians being assaulted by the brutal Syrian government and the odious Islamic State which occupies more than one third of Syria's territory. The response of the U.S. and other world powers has been woefully inadequate. Syria is clearly not a priority for Washington, Europe and most Arab countries.

Burns and Miliband recommend four decisive steps that should be taken by the U.S. and others.

"If Europe genuinely supports a two-state solution — and I believe it does — then Europe can individually and collectively affirm that by recognizing the “state of Palestine,” even though the Palestinians do not enjoy full control of the territory of their anticipated state in the Israeli-occupied or -besieged West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Highlighting formal recognition of a Palestinian state and then activating that status through issues like recognizing passports, trade accords and other means will hasten the day when a majority of Israelis comes to its senses and lives peacefully with the Palestinians in contiguous states. "

"The worsening situation in Syria threatens the Middle East in many ways that will continue to evolve in the months and years ahead, but perhaps the most troubling threat is the continued expansion of the hardline groups of Salafist-takfiri Islamists, such as Al-Nusra Front and The Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), that have established themselves in parts of Syria."

Given the recent surge of assistance being given to the Assad regime by Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia, Professor Burns sees this as a call to action for US intervention, which, he argues, may be Syria's only hope at this point.