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November 20, 2009
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Jon B. Alterman

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Jon B. Alterman is director and senior fellow of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Prior to joining CSIS, he served as a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State and as a special assistant to the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. Before entering government, he was a scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace and at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 1993 to 1997, Alterman was an award-winning teacher at Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. in history. He also worked as a legislative aide to Senator Daniel P. Moynihan (D-N.Y.), responsible for foreign policy and defense.

Articles written by Jon B. Alterman

Egypt's House of the Rising Son

By Jon B. Alterman 20 Nov 2009 | World Politics Review It is a strange kind of republic in which presidents serve for life. It is an even stranger one in which rulers inherit power from their fathers. Yet, that is the direction in which the Arab Republic of Egypt is headed. For more than a decade, President Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal, has been the only Egyptian for whom it was safe to harbor high political ambitions.

China's Hard Choices on Iran

By Jon B. Alterman 14 Oct 2009 | World Politics Review China increasingly seems to be the odd man out in international efforts to regulate the Iranian nuclear program. The French have taken a surprisingly hard line, and there are signs that Russia may be stiffening its resolve as well. China, by contrast, seems invariably to caution patience. Ironically, China's policy does not match its interests in the Gulf, which align almost wholly with those of the U.S.

Iran's Revolution Grows Up

By Jon B. Alterman 15 Sep 2009 | World Politics Review The government of Iran struggled for decades to fit into the broader Middle East, and it has finally succeeded: It now sees its people principally as a source of instability rather than a source of legitimacy. Thirty years after the Revolution, the Iranian government has concluded that it is far better to anesthetize the population than mobilize it. It is a conclusion from which there is no turning back.

Iran: The Whole World is Watching

By Jon B. Alterman 29 Jun 2009 | World Politics Review It is easy to be swept up by all of the images coming out of Iran and think that the days of dictatorship -- in Iran and the rest of the world -- are numbered. But the fact is that governments in the electronic age retain awesome advantages over their nongovernmental opponents, and technology gives them far more tools for managing restive populations than was the case a generation ago.

Middle East: Authoritarian Democracy and Democratic Authoritarianism

By Jon B. Alterman 29 May 2009 | World Politics Review For a part of the world that doesn't have a lot of freedom, the Middle East certainly has a lot of upcoming elections that matter. In much of the region, the results are a foregone conclusion. Rulers elsewhere are not about to allow challengers, and victory margins of 20, 40, or even 90 percent are commonplace. What makes these elections so interesting is that their outcomes are truly unknown.

U.S.-Egypt: The Magic is Gone

By Jon B. Alterman 14 Apr 2009 | World Politics Review More than three decades after U.S. and Egyptian presidents together changed the landscape of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the U.S.-Egyptian relationship has grown stale. Egyptians feel unappreciated, and Americans feel that their aid has been taken for granted. The way in which the relationship continues to disappoint expectations is corrosive. It must now be either reinvigorated or "right-sized."

The Middle East Moves East

By Jon B. Alterman 11 Feb 2009 | World Politics Review The U.S. government's map of the Middle East is changing. Long dominated by the Arab-Israeli conflict, U.S. conceptions of the Middle East are drifting eastward, increasingly centering in the Persian Gulf and coming to envelop the mountains and plains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Seen this way, the U.S. purpose in the region far transcends the need to resolve historical conflicts.

Restoring America's Persuasiveness

By Jon B. Alterman 07 Nov 2008 | World Politics Review To hear some people tell the story, anti-Americanism will end now that Barack Obama has been elected president, bringing with him a traditional American respect for foreign cultures, international law, and multilateral diplomacy. The Bush legacy will fade from view, and Americans will once again be beloved around the globe, especially in Arab countries. The world, however, is not so simple. Its grievances will not disappear; indeed, they are unlikely to change much, despite Barack Obama's election victory.

U.S. and Gulf States Must Coordinate Iran Policies

By Jon B. Alterman 16 Oct 2008 | World Politics Review The Arab Gulf States and the United States are adopting increasingly contradictory positions on Iran. Each side seems bent on undermining the other, potentially leading to precisely the outcome that each side is trying to prevent. There is wisdom in both approaches, but they are far more effective if applied in coordination than if pursued in competition. Not only are the stakes too high for the United States to get this wrong; they are too high for U.S. allies in the Gulf as well.

The Vital Triangle: China, the U.S. and the Middle East

By Jon B. Alterman 28 Jul 2008 | World Politics Review China and its Asian neighbors have been the beneficiaries of U.S. efforts to secure the Gulf and its rich oil supplies. Critics charge that China has been content to be something less than a full partner on Gulf security. But it has often yielded to U.S. demands relating to the region. This is not a hopeless case. Cooperation between the United States and China in the Middle East up to now has been incremental. Now, it is in the interests of both China and the United States that it become more systematic.

The Cold War Analogy: Another Way With Iran

By Jon B. Alterman 25 Jun 2008 | World Politics Review Irrational regimes have a way of self-destructing, but hostile ones can linger on. The U.S. predilection is often to favor the destruction of hostile ones in order to "fix" lingering problems. If Iran is indeed a rational but hostile power, the United States should be seeking to apply the lessons of the Cold War and developing tools to manage Iran's actions. Such tools would almost certainly involve more engagement than there has been in the last several years, and building rather than severing ties between the two countries.

Bush Administration Middle East Policy: What Went Wrong?

By Jon B. Alterman 16 May 2008 | World Politics Review Exclusive It has become impossible to credibly argue that the Bush Administration's Middle East policies have advanced U.S. national interests. On every issue that the administration has prioritized -- promoting Arab-Israeli peace, liberating Lebanon from Syrian and Iranian influence, democratizing Egypt, stabilizing Iraq, and containing Iran -- America's foes have grown stronger and its allies have grown weaker. And virtually all of these problems are worsening as the administration prepares to leave office.

Bush and the Middle East: Freedom Agenda, Take Three

By Jon B. Alterman 21 Jan 2008 | World Politics Review On Jan. 13 in Abu Dhabi, U.S. President George W. Bush delivered his third speech dedicated largely to freedom in the Middle East, which is three more than any previous U.S. president. But in his latest speech the president's calculus had clearly changed. Not only was much of the urgency gone, but the language was far more muted. Gone were references to "tyranny" and "oppression," and governments were characterized not as obstacles to freedom but as bulwarks against fanaticism.

The Death of Political Islam?

By Jon B. Alterman 14 Dec 2007 | World Politics Review The obituaries for political Islam have begun to be written. After years of seemingly unstoppable growth, Islamic parties have begun to stumble. It is too early to declare the death of political Islam, as it was premature to proclaim the rebirth of liberalism in the Arab world in 2003-04, but its prospects seem notably dimmer than they did even a year ago. But while Islam has not provided a coherent theory of governance, the salience of religion continues to grow among many Muslims.

U.S. Must Do More to Abate Threat Posed by Iraqi Refugee Flows

By Jon B. Alterman 28 Sep 2007 | World Politics Review Iraq's refugees tell heartbreaking accounts of suffering, displacement, and shattered dreams, but these refugees represent more than mere human interest stories. Collectively, the outpouring of millions of Iraqi refugees into a very small number of neighboring countries poses a dramatic security threat to the Middle East, and there is no sign that threat is going away. The United States is leading by example. It accepts just 70,000 refugees per year worldwide, and only a small fraction have been from Iraq.

U.S.-Chinese Cooperation in the Middle East Should Be Deepened

By Jon B. Alterman 27 Apr 2007 | World Politics Review China's spectacular growth over the last two decades has made it ever more thirsty for energy, but  Chinese policymakers are not sure they can secure their energy supply into the future. Rather than gain confidence as the United States has stumbled in the Middle East, many Chinese take U.S. problems in the region as a sign of Chinese vulnerability as well. Some in the United States feared China would soon stand out as a rival to U.S. influence, but recently the Chinese government has shown an interest in being helpful. That cooperation needs to be deepened.

In Middle East Diplomacy, the Silent Treatment Goes Both Ways

By Jon B. Alterman 13 Dec 2006 | World Politics Review Of the 79 recommendations of the Iraq Study Group report that came out recently, the one that got the most attention -- even before the report's release -- was the recommendation that the U.S. government talk with Iran and Syria. That recommendation has also met with broad approval in the Arab world. For all of their applause for dialogue, however, Arab governments have given scant thought to their own little effort at isolation, that of Israel. As Israel and Iran are major non-Arab powers in the region, one would think that the parallels would be obvious.