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.

In this installation of Conversations in Diplomacy, Congressman Seth Moulton, Representative of the Sixth District of Massachusetts, military veteran, and graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, discusses the most serious threats to U.S. national security with Ambassador Nicholas Burns, Faculty Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project.

In the global revulsion at the recent terror attacks in four Muslim countries, the United States and its allies have a new opportunity to build a unified command against the Islamic State and other extremists. FDP Senior Fellow David Ignatius examines the diplomatic relationships needed to create an effective counterterrorism strategy.

Despite wary military cooperation, U.S. strategy remains on a collision course with that of Turkey, a NATO ally. What can be done to prevent an eventual rupture that would damage all concerned? David Ignatius, Senior Fellow for the Future of Diplomacy Project, offers suggestions for strategic cooperation.

New York Times columnist and former Fisher Family Fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project, Roger Cohen, reveals his thoughts on the recent string of ISIS-affiliated attacks from Paris to San Bernadino and reflects on what these events will mean for U.S. strategy in the Middle East.

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.

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.

This week, Professor Burns' Boston Globe column discusses the two most serious global crises of the Obama Presidency--Putin's aggression in Ukraine and the disintegration of Iraq with the rise of ISIS.

"As determined as foreigners may be to resolve conflict, civil war is extraordinarily resistant to outside intervention."

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.