IRAQI DEMOCRACY?
Talk of democracy in Iraq may help make the war more palatable, but it may be the last thing the U.S. needs there, says CDI researcher Michael Donovan, because policies pursued by a government representing the will of the Iraqi people are unlikely to be attractive to Washington.
Center for Defense Information, November 7 2002

MEET BEIJING'S NEXT GENERATION
Andrew J. Nathan and Bruce Gilley offer a comprehensive guide to China's new wave of Communist Party leaders in the New York Review of Books.
New York Review of Books, October 10, 2002

CHECHEN TERROR RAISES PRESSURE ON GEORGIA
Moscow has long been citing Chechen rebel sanctuaries in Georgia as reason for leaning on their least-loved neighbor in the Caucasus, Georgia's President Eduard Shevardnadze. The Center for Strategic International Studies warns that in light of the Moscow theater siege, the U.S. needs to apply stronger pressure for genuine changes in Georgia's corrupt regime, or else risk the demise of a key NATO ally in the region.
CSIS, November 7, 2002

CHECHNYA CRISIS: NO END IN SIGHT
Professor Stephen Blank of the U.S. Army War College argues that the Moscow theater siege arises directly out of the conditions prevailing in Chechnya as a result of Russia's war there, and that the siege means there's no end in sight to the cycle of brutality.
Center for Defense Information, November 6, 2002

CHECHENS BRACE FOR RUSSIAN RETALIATION
The West may set limits on what Russia can do in Georgia, but Moscow has a free hand in Chechnya, and its civilian population will pay the price. A Chechen journalist captures the mood in Chechnya following the Moscow siege.
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, November 7, 2002

TURKEY: A MODEL FOR ISLAMIST DEMOCRACY?
Turkish secularists, particularly the uniformed kind, and Western observers are fretting over the landslide electoral victory of a party with Islamist roots. But New Yorker editor David Remnick sees the glass as half full, suggesting that Turkey could become the model for integrating the Islamist impulse into a democratic polity.
The New Yorker, November 11, 2002

TURKEY, ERDOGAN AND ISLAM
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose party won last week's Turkish elections, may have his roots in the Islamist movement, but his orientation is towards Europe rather than the Islamic world.
International Herald Tibune, November 11, 2002

AFGHAN CRISIS LOOMS FOR THE U.S.
In frank remarks to the Brookings Institution, recently, Joint Chiefs chairman General Richard Myers said the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan is losing momentum, while its Al Qaeda and Taliban enemies are growing increasingly assertive. With U.S. bases under attack on average three times a week and the Karzai government struggling to hold its own, the Afghan model of "regime-change" isn't inspiring much confidence over a post-Saddam Iraq.
Washington Post, November 8, 2002

PAKISTAN: MUSHARRAF'S ISOLATION
Afghanistan isn't Washington's only headache in South Asia; the regime of general-turned-president Pervez Musharraf is growing increasingly isolated following recent elections that saw major gains for Islamist parties. Although Pakistan has a long tradition of military dictators, Sumit Ganguly argues that Musharraf is distinguished from his predecessors by his complete lack of allies in the civilian population.
Foreign Affairs, November 13, 2002

ONLY U.S. CAN SAVE ISRAEL FROM ITS SETTLERS
As Israelis contemplate another election, Akiva Eldar suggests that the political median has moved far to the right because of the absence of U.S. pressure. It was Washington's hard line against Israeli settlement of the West Bank and Gaza that drove voters to elect Yitzhak Rabin, he argues, but the current Bush administration has instead made common cause with a government of the setters. Now, the question on many Israeli leaders' minds is whether a post-Saddam scenario will bring renewed pressure on Israel to sue for peace with the Palestinians.
Haaretz, November 11, 2002

PROTOCOLS OF THE TV MOGULS OF EGYPT
Egypt has resisted pressure from Israel and the U.S. to stop the broadcast, during Ramadan, of a TV miniseries depicting Arab history. The protests were spurred by the fact that "Horseman Without a Horse" makes use of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a notorious anti-Jewish fiction penned by the Czarist secret police in Russia in the late 19th century. Al Ahram's Amira Howeidy suggests that the show itself, and the 'defiance' displayed by the authorities in the face of pressure to ban it, are actually a fig leaf for Egypt's reluctance to confront real political challenges.
Al Ahram, November 7 -13, 2002

DECODING ARAB ANTI-AMERICANISM
U.S. efforts to counter anti-American sentiment in the Arab world are missing the point, argues Barry Rubin in Foreign Affairs. Such sentiment is tolerated, even encouraged by the authorities because it distracts the Arab street from the failings of their own leaders.
Foreign Affairs, November, 2002