Middle East & North Africa

107 Items

President-elect Joe Biden and his climate envoy, John Kerry, at The Queen theater.

Carolyn Kaster/AP

Analysis & Opinions - Bloomberg Opinion

What Does Success Look Like for a Climate Czar?

| Dec. 02, 2020

President-elect Joe Biden’s decision to create a new cabinet-level position for climate-related issues — and to choose so prominent a figure as former Secretary of State John Kerry to fill it — demonstrates Biden’s sincerity over putting climate at the very center of U.S. foreign policy. It is easy to understate the importance of this appointment, given the flurry of czars created by most new administrations.

Audio - Acast

Coronavirus: Intelligence Failure

| May 26, 2020

Dan Snow is joined by Calder Walton to talk about whether there was a huge intelligence failure around the outbreak of the pandemic, but also whether our intelligence communities are properly organized to realistically evaluate the real nature of the threats to our societies. He also has a bold idea to help avoid a future recurrence.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats

AP/Evan Vucci

Analysis & Opinions - Project Syndicate

Speaking Truth to Power

| Aug. 05, 2019

Joseph Nye writes that many partisans accused President George W. Bush of lying and pressuring the intelligence community to produce intelligence to justify a war that Bush had already chosen to prosecute. The situation was complicated, however, and to understand the problems of speaking truth to power, the myths must be cleared away.

In this photo, taken on March 22, 2018 Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets with U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at the Pentagon in Washington.

AP Photo/Cliff Owen

Analysis & Opinions - The Wall Street Journal

The Saudi Crown Prince’s Uncertain Fate

| Oct. 23, 2018

The looming question in U.S.-Saudi relations: Can the crown prince retain unchecked authority in the Kingdom? And if he does, can the U.S.-Saudi relationship—including close cooperation on Gulf security and global oil policy and large infusions of Saudi money into U.S. Treasury bills—remain undamaged? In short, can King Salman retain his son as crown prince and the U.S. as a close ally?

Blogtrepreneur/Flickr

Blogtrepreneur/Flickr

Journal Article - Nonproliferation Review

Solving the Jurisdictional Conundrum: How U.S. Enforcement Agencies Target Overseas Illicit Procurement Networks Using Civil Courts

| September 2018

Over the past two decades, the United States has increasingly turned to targeted sanctions and export restrictions, such as those imposed against Iran and North Korea, in order to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction. One vexing problem, however, is how to contend with jurisdictional hurdles when the violations occur overseas, in countries that are unable or unwilling to assist US enforcement efforts. To solve this problem, US prosecutors are turning to strategies with significant extraterritorial implications—that is, exercising legal authority beyond national borders. One such tool is to use civil legal procedures to seize assets linked to sanctions or export-control violations in jurisdictions that lack cooperative arrangements with US enforcement agencies. While this may be an attractive strategy to bolster enforcement efforts against overseas illicit procurement, using such tools is not without consequence. This article explores the political, legal, and technical implications of enforcing extraterritorial controls against overseas non-state actors by exploring the recent uses of civil-asset forfeiture against Iranian and North Korean procurement networks.

Security personnel surround Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro during an incident as he was giving a speech in Caracas on Saturday.

(Xinhua/AP)

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

Drone Attacks Are Essentially Terrorism by Joystick

| Aug. 05, 2018

A failed assassination attempt against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Saturday was mounted with explosive-armed drones, according to news reports. Nine days earlier, and on the other side of the world, terrorists claimed to have sent an armed drone to attack the international airport in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. No one was killed in either case, and the circumstances of both remain murky. But a new and dangerous era in non-state-sponsored terrorism clearly has begun, and no one is adequately prepared to counter it.