Steven A. Cook

From the Potomac to the Euphrates

Cook examines developments in the Middle East and their resonance in Washington.

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Showing posts for "Saudi Arabia"

Weekend Reading: Action, but No Reaction in Syria, Morocco’s “Miracle,” and Cairo-Riyadh Blues

by Steven A. Cook
An Egyptian youth reads a newspaper in a cafe in Cairo (Suhaib Salem/Courtesy Reuters). An Egyptian youth reads a newspaper in a cafe in Cairo (Suhaib Salem/Courtesy Reuters).

Itamar Rabinovich says the United States is substituting symbolic action for real action in Syria–at the detriment of the Syrian people.

Aboubakr Jamai explains the Moroccan “miracle” of mild authoritarianism. Read more »

Don’t Fear a Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East

by Steven A. Cook
Iran's President Ahmadinejad speaks during a ceremony at the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility (Caren Firouz/Courtesy Reuters) Iran's President Ahmadinejad speaks during a ceremony at the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility (Caren Firouz/Courtesy Reuters)

This article was originally published here on ForeignPolicy.com on Monday, April 3, 2012. 

On March 21, Haaretz correspondent Ari Shavit wrote a powerful op-ed in the New York Times that began with this stark and stunning claim: “An Iranian atom bomb will force Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt to acquire their own atom bombs.” Indeed, it has become axiomatic among Middle East watchers, nonproliferation experts, Israel’s national security establishment, and a wide array of U.S. government officials that Iranian proliferation will lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. President Barack Obama himself, in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) last month, said that if Iran went nuclear, it was “almost certain that others in the region would feel compelled to get their own nuclear weapon.” Read more »

After the Arab Spring on TheAtlantic.com

by Steven A. Cook

A Kingdom of Libya flag is seen during a demonstration in support of the Bahraini people in Baghdad's Sadr city (Stringer Iraq/Courtesy Reuters)

Hi folks,

Below is an excerpt from my piece on TheAtlantic.com that appeared today. To read the full text, click here.

A couple of days before Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was finally forced from office, it rained in Cairo. When the storm passed and the sun re-appeared, one of the protesters pointed out on Twitter that a rainbow had appeared over downtown — a sign, she believed, of the freedom and prosperity that was to come. Caught up in the romance of the barricades, it was hard for demonstrators and democracy activists, in Egypt and beyond, not to think that way. It seemed that Middle East was on the verge of a democratic breakthrough. It was one thing for Tunisians to force a tin-pot dictator like Zine Abidine Ben Ali to flee to Jeddah, it was quite another for Egyptians to dump the Pharaoh. That’s not supposed to happen. And as Tunisians inspired Egyptians, what the revolutionaries in Cairo accomplished gave impetus to Pearl Square, where Bahrain’s own protesters have gathered, and to Benghazi, the base of Libya’s rebellion against Muammar Qaddafi. Yet the successes of Tahrir or November 7 squares have not easily translated to these other places. It seems entirely possible that the Arab spring could end on the banks of the Nile. What went wrong?

Read more »

Roundup: Wikimania

by Steven A. Cook

wikileaks arab iran turkey

The Wikileaks Cable as Literature
Beam on the art of cable writing

Wikileaks and the Arab Public Sphere
Lynch on how Arab autocrats will confront the Leaks

Confirming the “bad chemistry”
Istanbul Calling on Wiki, America, and Turkey

Arabs and Iran
Sullivan and Goldberg duke it out over whether the Israel lobby is the only potent force advocating for war against Iran

Read more »

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