The Center for American Progress (CAP) hosted a discussion titled “The Future of the U.S.-Turkey Relationship” on Wednesday. Brian Katulis, senior fellow at CAP, moderated a panel composed of Steven Cook, senior fellow of Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Michael Werz, senior fellow at CAP. As part of the larger discussion of Turkey-U.S. relations, the panelists addressed the development of democracy in Turkey.
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On Wednesday, Dr. Nora Fisher Onar, professor of Politics and International Relations at Bahcesehir Unverisity in Istanbul and visiting research fellow at Oxford University’s Centre for International Studies, spoke on differing schools of thought within Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
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On Wednesday Isobel Coleman, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, presented her new book “Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East” at an event sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Middle East and Environmental Change and Security Programs. Haleh Esfandiari, Director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Middle East Program, moderated the event.
(To read the full notes, continue below or click here for the pdf.)
On Monday, October 18th, the Brookings Institution held an event called “What Next for Afghanistan? A Post-Election Analysis.” The panel was moderated by Martin Indyk, Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. The panelists were Thomas Garrett, Vice President for Programs at the International Republican Institute; Michael O’Hanlon, Senior Fellow and Director of Research in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution; Vanda Felbab-Brown, Fellow at the Brookings Institution; and Gerard Russell, Former Senior Political Adviser for Afghanistan. The group discussed the recent parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, focusing on polling irregularities, voter intimidation, tabulation errors, prospects for peace talks between President Hamid Karzai and Taliban leaders, and the future of the U.S. and NATO role in the country.
(For the full notes, continue reading below. Or, click here for the PDF.)
On Thursday, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace hosted a discussion on the evolving relationship between the democracy support and economic aid communities.Thomas Carothers, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment, gave a summary of his forthcoming article in the Journal of Democracy describing the “uneasy convergence” between the two groups. Brian Levy, adviser on public sector governance at the World Bank, and Scott Hubli, director of governance programs at the National Democratic Institute (NDI), delivered responses, and Marc Plattner coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and vice-president for research and studies at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) moderated the discussion.
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On Monday, October 4th, The George Washington University hosted a panel entitled “Do Jordan’s Elections Matter?” The event was moderated by Marc Lynch, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington. The panelists were Curtis Ryan, Associate Professor of Political Science at Appalachian State University, Anne Mariel Peters, Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, and Jillian Schwedler, Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The speakers were asked to discuss Jordan’s upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for November 9th. In a few opening remarks, Mark Lynch pointed out that much of the discussion about democracy in the Middle East has been “telescoped” on Egypt. Amidst hopes for reform in Jordan, however, it seems important to ask whether these elections will bring change. What role will Islamist groups play, and what election reforms have been made? More broadly, do the elections matter at all?
The full event notes are below - otherwise, find the PDF here.
On Wednesday, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in partnership with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) convened a panel to discuss political reform in Lebanon. The panelists were Lebanese Interior Minister Ziad Baroud, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Tamara Wittes, and IFES Chief of Party in Lebanon Richard Chambers. The discussion and the following question and answer session were moderated by Mona Yacoubian, the Director of the Lebanon Working Group at USIP.
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On Wednesday, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the United States Institute of Peace co-hosted a panel discussion titled “Towards a Palestinian State: Is Institution Building Succeeding?” The discussion was moderated by Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen, a Program Officer in USIP’s Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution. The panelists were Nathan Brown, a Nonresident Senior Associate of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment, Neil Kritz, the Senior Scholar in Residence in the Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution at USIP, Ghaith Al-Omari, Advocacy Director at the American Task Force on Palestine, and Howard Sumka, Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East for USAID.
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On Monday, September 27th, the Middle East Institute held an event entitled “The Struggle for a Democratic Future in Afghanistan: The 2010 Parliamentary Elections.” Kate Seelye, Vice President of Programs and Communications for MEI, introduced the two speakers: Marvin Weinbaum, scholar at the Middle East Institute, and Caroline Wadhams, Director for South Asia Security Studies at the Center for American Progress. Both recently returned from trips to Afghanistan, where they were monitoring the recent elections there. Seelye asked the speakers to discuss what they saw, as well as address the impact that the elections and their results might have for Afghanistan and for Washington’s engagement there.
(To read the full event summary, continue below. Or click here for the pdf.)
On Friday, David Ottaway gave a talk at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars titled “Egypt at the Tipping Point?” Ottaway – who is a senior scholar at the Wilson Center and the former Bureau Chief for the Washington Post in Cairo – discussed the findings from his recent paper, published in the Wilson Center Middle East Program’s Summer 2010 Occasional Paper Series. The talk was introduced and moderated by Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program.
(To read the full event summary, continue below. Or, click here to read the pdf.)
The Woodrow Wilson Center hosted an event today focusing on the state of women’s rights and empowerment in Tunisia and elsewhere. It featured Professor Nabiha Gueddana, President and Director-General of the National Agency for Family and Population, former Secretary of State in charge of Women and Family Affairs, and former chair of “Partners in Population and Development: South-South Initiative.” The event was moderated by Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center.
The United States Institute of Peace hosted an event with the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, as the keynote speaker. As outgoing Ambassador, Hill addressed the major challenges facing Iraq and discussed future U.S. policy and interests in the country.
POMED’s full notes continue below or read as a pdf.
The Center for a New American Security held a conference focusing on the changing role of the U.S. in Iraq, in light of the continuing drawdown of U.S. troops to 50,000 by September 1. Nathaniel Fick, CNAS’s Chief Executive Officer, moderated discussion by two leading Administration officials on Iraq: Michael Corbin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq; and Colin Kahl, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East.
The Brookings Institution hosted a presentation by Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and Senior Fellow at Brookings, on the 2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll. Kenneth Pollack, Senior Fellow and Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, moderated the event.
The National Press Club held a conference yesterday to discuss the transatlantic relationship between the United States and Europe in the effort to provide democracy assistance to the rest of the world. The discussion, moderated by Katty Kay of BBC World News America, featured five speakers: Madeleine K. Albright, former Secretary of State and current National Democratic Institute (NDI) Chairwoman; Jerzy Buzek, President of European Parliament and former Polish Prime Minister; Vin Weber, former Congressman and former Chairman for the National Endowment for Democracy; Maria Leissner, Sweden’s ambassador for democracy; and Ana Palacio, former Foreign Minister of Spain. Other organizations contributed to the discussion as well, including the German Marshall Fund of the United States and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The Rumi Forum invited Ambassador Rashad Hussain, U.S. Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), to discuss initiatives taken by the Obama administration as part of its strategy of broader engagement with the Islamic world in the year since the President’s Cairo address in June of 2009. The event was moderated by Ambassador David Mack, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs.Ambassador Mack opened the conversation with remarks praising the Rumi Forum’s dedication to intercultural communication and interaction, and introduced the guest speaker.
The Brookings Institution held a conference on Turkey-Iran relations and their implications for U.S. policy in the Middle East. The panel of experts included journalist and author Stephen Kinzer, who has a new book published on this particular issue called Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America’s Future; Suzanne Maloney, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; and Ömer Taspinar, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
(POMED’s full notes of the event continue below, or read the notes as a pdf document)
Yesterday afternoon, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace hosted a conference focused on the aftermath of last year’s presidential elections and where Tehran is headed now. The panel, moderated by Steve Inskeep of National Public Radio, included: Dr. Abbas Milani of Stanford University, Gary Sick, who served on the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan and is currently senior research scholar at SIPA’s Middle East Institute, and Karim Sadjadpour, Associate at the Carnegie Endowment.
POMED’s full notes on the event are available as a pdf, or continue reading below the fold.
Earlier today, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars hosted an event to explore the last year of Iranian politics and U.S. diplomacy toward the Iranian regime. There were two panels of experts, each highlighting a different component of either geopolitics or internal Iranian social forces. The first, moderated by professor Shaul Bakhash of George Mason University, included: Michael Postl, former Ambassador of the Austrian Republic to Iran; and Nicholas Burns, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and current professor at Harvard. The second panel, moderated by professor Kaveh Ehsani from DePaul University, included: Farideh Farhi, independent scholar and affiliate graduate faculty at the University of Hawaii at Manoa; and Suzanne Malone, senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy.
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Earlier today, Freedom House and the Project on Middle East Democracy co-hosted an event at the Capitol Visitor Center to explore the effects of President Obama’s new approach to the Arab World, the current challenges for democracy and human rights in the region, and the prospects for changes in U.S. policy to bring about a lasting impact. Tamara Wittes, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, provided remarks on how the president’s Cairo speech has shaped the last year of Middle East policy. Deputy Director of Freedom House Thomas. O Melia then moderated a group of 3 panelists: Dina Guirguis, Research Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Andrew Albertson, Executive Director of POMED; and Stephen Grand, Director of the U.S. Relations with the Islamic World project at the Brookings Institution.
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