Copyright 2010 Ilan Berman Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:40:02 -0500 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Ilan Berman :: Writings http://www.ilanberman.com berman@afpc.org (Ilan Berman) webmaster@pundicity.com en-us http://www.ilanberman.com/7003/a-new-sheriff-at-the-un Mon, 1 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST If it's true that in politics you are judged by the caliber of your enemies, Yukiya Amano is off to a stellar start. The 62-year-old Japanese technocrat has only been at the helm of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency... http://www.ilanberman.com/6942/al-qaidas-dirty-little-secret Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST What do al-Qaida's leaders fear most? It's not the more stringent screening requirements imposed by the Transportation Security Administration in the wake of the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing by Nigerian extremist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Nor... http://www.ilanberman.com/6937/taking-stock-of-irans-nuclear-ambitions Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST What can the Obama administration do about Iran's drive to develop nuclear weapons? The president's informal year-end deadline for a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear impasse with Iran has come and gone. Iran recently announced that it plans to build... http://www.ilanberman.com/6891/russias-real-threat-failure Mon, 1 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST There's an old saying, familiar to historians and foreign policy practitioners, that "geography is destiny." A modern twist to this rule is that demography is no less decisive. Russia is finding this out the hard way. Over the past several years, under... http://www.ilanberman.com/6847/thinking-beyond-petroleum Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST The funny thing about windows of opportunity is that they have a way of closing. Over the past year, spurred by mounting worries over Iran's nuclear ambitions, Congress has taken up the issue of economic pressure against the Islamic Republic in earnest.... http://www.ilanberman.com/2010/01/refocusing-us-policy-on-the-war-on-terror Wed, 6 Jan 2010 13:16:00 EST The near-disaster that took place in the skies over Detroit on Christmas Day has refocused domestic attention on an issue that has dominated headlines for much of the past year. That issue is the state of U.S. counterterrorism strategy, and the picture... http://www.ilanberman.com/6759/stagnation-threatens-us-arms-superiority Mon, 4 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST A funny thing happened in the skies over Norway last month. On Dec. 10, as U.S. President Barack Obama geared up to deliver his acceptance speech before the Nobel Prize Committee in Oslo, spectators outdoors were treated to a spectacular display of... http://www.ilanberman.com/6731/defiant-in-tehran Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST Another month, another fissure within the Islamic Republic. In the six months since Iran's fraudulent presidential elections brought protesters out into the streets en masse, the Iranian regime has weathered a profound and sustained domestic crisis of... http://www.ilanberman.com/6720/iraqi-militia-leader-lays-down-arms-for-politics Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST Remember Moqtada al-Sadr? Just three years ago, the firebrand cleric and his feared Mahdi Army militia were the scourge of the coalition in Iraq, spearheading the Shia opposition to the United States and its allies in the former Ba'athist state. Since... http://www.ilanberman.com/6694/toughen-up-on-iran Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST When it comes to Iran, the Obama administration could learn a thing or two from Europe. That is because, even as Washington clings doggedly to its plans for "engagement" with Tehran, there are signs that a new consensus is emerging in Europe about... http://www.ilanberman.com/6663/messaging-to-the-muslim-masses Mon, 7 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST By now, the idea that the struggle against radical Islam is in large part a battle of ideas has become widely accepted. Our statesmen, diplomats and political leaders regularly intone that we are engaged in a monumental conflict between freedom and fear,... http://www.ilanberman.com/2009/12/irans-month-of-living-dangerously Tue, 1 Dec 2009 10:15:00 EST You might have missed it, but the past month has opened a new page in Iran's confrontation with the West. On November 28th, the Iranian government dramatically upped the stakes in the international standoff over its nuclear program when it approved a... http://www.ilanberman.com/2009/11/gwot-rip Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:19:00 EST Years from now, historians are likely to look back on November 13th as the day the War on Terror died. The Obama administration's decision, announced publicly on Friday, to bring terror mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others to New York to... http://www.ilanberman.com/2009/11/getting-the-hint Mon, 9 Nov 2009 15:31:00 EST Just what part of the word "no" don't we understand? Over the past month, the Obama administration's much-anticipated plans for detente with Iran have run up against some harsh realities. The tentative deal struck on October 1st in Geneva, under which... http://www.ilanberman.com/6527/an-islamist-pivot-to-the-east Fri, 6 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST "This is the way the world ends," T.S. Eliot wrote in his epic 1925 poem "The Hollow Men," "not with a bang but a whimper." Had he written it today, Eliot could easily have been speaking about the strategic divorce taking place between Israel and Turkey...