Larry Haas – Page 39

Recent developments in Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere have convinced skeptics that U.S. human rights promotion in the Middle East causes more harm than good by inciting instability – positioning the Muslim Brotherhood and other anti-Western forces to win elections or otherwise seize power. The argument has superficial appeal, but it rests on problematic assumptions about …

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U.S. Opportunities in Libya and Egypt

July 12, 2012

International Business Times

Events in Libya and Egypt highlight the potential benefits of United States human rights promotion – both for the U.S. and for people across the world – as well as the downsides of America’s failure to pursue that task. The U.S. promotes human rights – i.e., freedom and democracy – for both moral and selfish …

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Peace Through Tennis: An Alluring Idea

June 28, 2012

International Business Times

Across the Middle East, hopes for Arab-Israeli peace face obstacles that, of late, are rising on multiple fronts. Fatah and Hamas are working toward a coalition government, which will further empower a terrorist group that’s sworn to Israel’s destruction and isolate Palestinian moderates; a candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood is assuming the presidency in Egypt …

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Suu Kyi’s timely reminder

June 20, 2012

The Commentator

Delivering her Nobel Lecture after a 21-year delay, Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi offered a timely reminder from the front lines of struggle. “To be forgotten,” she said in her October 16th address in Oslo, “… is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest …

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We Will Be Haunted By Syria

June 14, 2012

International Business Times

“Life,” the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said, “must be lived forward, but can only be understood backwards.” What’s true of individuals is true of nations. As we, as a nation, look back in an effort to understand our history, we invariably question some of the decisions we made – and the horror we tolerated. Years from …

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Washington’s dangerous fiscal maneuvering

June 6, 2012

The Commentator

The economic news of recent days has unsettled the conventional wisdom that Washington will take an all-talk, no-action approach to fiscal policy until Election Day, with all sides posturing for electoral gain and delaying action to address looming deficits until late 2012 if not early 2013. Until recently, the political class assumed President Obama and …

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Learning from the “Arab Spring”

June 1, 2012

Journal of International Security Affairs

The growing turmoil of the “Arab Spring”—the populist awakening that spread like a brushfire across the Middle East and North Africa after a desperate fruit peddler in Tunisia set himself afire in December of 2010—can shake the optimism of even the most enthusiastic human rights promoter. As of this writing, populist uprisings have toppled dictators …

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