Middle East & North Africa

Nicholas Burns, former State Department undersecretary, on the tensions between President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Trump's handling of U.S. foreign policy.

Nicholas Burns, a Harvard Kennedy School professor, discusses President Donald Trump's meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the fallout from his intelligence disclosures to Russian diplomats. He speaks with Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal, Julia Chatterley and Scarlet Fu on "What'd You Miss?" 

"The recent and ongoing spate of decisions by several Arab governments to dissolve and ban certain political groups (mostly Sunni or Shiite Islamists) is a reflection of two dynamics that need to be reviewed together: rising sectarian, political, and ideological tensions across the region, alongside continuing structural inabilities in every Arab country, except Tunisia to date, to accommodate a range of differing political views in a legitimate governance system..."

"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.

"The big new element in today’s Middle East is the continued emergence of decisive leadership, unilateral interventions, and diplomatic and military initiatives by the three major regional powers of Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey. These three states’ concerns and actions on the ground now have immense impact, parallel to the deeds of global powers and Israel that traditionally influenced major regional trends..."

"Freedom of expression and participation in the public sphere are powerful antidotes to the sense of hopelessness, marginalization, and helplessness that were such important drivers of the Arab uprisings and revolutions in 2011-12. The freedom to speak out and engage politically in society keeps people seeking non-violent ways to repair the broken systems and promises of their societies. For educated young adults, it also helps to keep them living in their own countries, rather than emigrating and depriving their societies of their talents and energy..."

Excerpt from an October 16 installment of the “Inside the Middle East" Q&A Series, with Minister Hedi Larbi, Former Minister of Economic Infrastructure and Sustainable Development and Middle East Initiative Fall 2015 Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar, on the role of International Monetary Institutions such as the World Bank and IMF in encouraging and implementing economic reforms during the political transition in Tunisia.

"Regional actors will no doubt try to pass the buck and get Americans to do their fighting for them. U.S. leaders should reject such ploys politely but firmly and pass the buck right back. ISIS is not an existential threat to the United States, to Middle Eastern energy supplies, to Israel, or to any other vital U.S. interest, so U.S. military forces have no business being sent into harm's way to fight it."

"The contrast this week between political decisions by the governments in Tunisia, Bahrain and Egypt capture vividly the two available pathways for Arab national development. For the first time ever in modern Arab history, Arab citizens across the region can witness how life, politics, and citizenship operate in two alternative systems based, respectively, on the rule of law and democratic pluralism, in the case of Tunisia, and on top-heavy, family-based, security-managed governance systems in most other Arab states, with Bahrain and Egypt offering the most recent unfortunate examples."