Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From MESH Admin This map of Lebanon, prepared by Lebanon-Support, seeks to identify areas of “vulnerability” within Lebanon—what might best be described as potential flash points—as of June 2008. The map’s authors describe the map’s layers in these terms: Political layer, displaying the electoral weight of the opposition and “loyalists” in each of the electoral [...]

Read Full Post »

Earlier this month, Israel sent more than 100 warplanes on military maneuvers across the Eastern Mediterranean. An unnamed U.S. official described the exercise as practice toward honing the skills for a long-range strike. The assumption is that the maneuvers signal an Israeli willingness and capability to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, if all other measures to [...]

Read Full Post »

MESH invites selected authors to offer original first-person statements on their new books—why and how they wrote them, and what impact they hope and expect to achieve. Marwan Muasher has held many high-level positions within the government of Jordan, including deputy prime minister, foreign minister, ambassador to the United States, and first Jordanian ambassador to [...]

Read Full Post »

MESH invites selected authors to offer original first-person statements on their new books—why and how they wrote them, and what impact they hope and expect to achieve. Marc J. O’Reilly is assistant professor of political science at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio. His new book is Unexceptional: America’s Empire in the Persian Gulf, 1941-2007.

Read Full Post »

From Stephen Peter Rosen and Martin Kramer We are pleased to announce a new paper, the second in our Middle East Papers series. Philip Carl Salzman, professor of anthropology at McGill University and a member of MESH, offers an interpretation of what he calls “Islamic intensification” among the Baluch of southeastern Iran. Often it is [...]

Read Full Post »

MESH invites selected authors to offer original first-person statements on their new books—why and how they wrote them, and what impact they hope and expect to achieve. Sir Lawrence Freedman is professor of war studies at King’s College, London. His new book is A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East.

Read Full Post »

From Gal Luft What’s behind the sudden burst of willingness on the part of the Saudis, who announced that they will increase oil output by 500,000 barrels per day in the coming months? After all, for many months they were quite unfazed by the economic havoc caused throughout the world by the rise in oil [...]

Read Full Post »