News + Media

	Analysis + Opinion April 3, 2008 Don't 'pull an Iraq' in Afghanistan Benjamin H. FriedmanChristian Science Monitor Massive state-building efforts are not a good use of tax dollars.
	In the News April 1, 2008 What happened in Basra? Barry Posen, director of the Center's Security Studies Program, Juan Cole, a CIS research affiliate, and other scholars, were featured on WBUR's "On Point." The scholars discussed with host Tom Ashbrook the recent rise of Moktada al-Sadr and his militia in the southern oil port of Basra. Listen to Basra: Defining Moment? Related, is a recent CIS Audit on Iraq by Juan Cole. Stephen Van Evera, associate director of CIS, was featured on Minnesota Public Radio on the topic "Calm returns to Iraq?"
	Audit April 1, 2008 Wilson’s radical vision for global governance Ezra Manela, Harvard University In recent years, Woodrow Wilson has returned to feature prominently in the public discourse on the role of the United States in the world. For students of U.S. foreign relations, this is hardly a surprising development. Wilson was responsible for articulating a vision of the U.S. role in the world—usually described as “liberal internationalism”—that has remained, despite well-known flaws and scores of critics over the years, dominant in shaping American rhetoric and self-image, if not always policies, vis-à-vis the rest of the world.
	Audit April 1, 2008 Good and bad news on global development Dani Rodrik, Harvard University I start with some good news, because there is, I think, a lot of good news in the world of development. Then I want to present what I think is essentially a paradox. The paradox, to put it very crudely, is that while economic development is working, development policy is not.
	Audit April 1, 2008 Wilson, Bush, and the evolution of liberal foreign policy Tony Smith, Tufts University The first subject to discuss in considering the future of the liberal internationalist agenda is the importance of the democratization project to the definition of Wilsonianism. The second is the meaning of multilateralism. In the first case, Thomas Knock and Anne-Marie Slaughter argue in a forthcoming volume that democratization was never an important part of Wilsonianism; that, instead, multilateralism is the key to liberal internationalism.
	Audit April 1, 2008 Wilson and the founders: the roots of liberal foreign policy Ted Widmer, Brown University We can’t do much better than reclaiming the Declaration of Independence as a fundamental foreign policy document in American history. We have a tendency to read it in a simplistic way, and to think of it only as a sort of airy declaration of what were then human rights, and a declaration of separation from England.
	News Release March 21, 2008 Just Jerusalem competition winners announced MIT’s Jerusalem 2050 Program, a joint initiative sponsored by the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the Center for International Studies, announced today the winners of its global Just Jerusalem competition. The open contest sought proposals that addressed different aspects of urban life in a futurist Jerusalem.
	In the News March 21, 2008 Just Jerusalem competition winners MIT’s Jerusalem 2050 Program, a joint initiative sponsored by the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the Center for International Studies, announced today the winners of its global Just Jerusalem competition. The open contest sought proposals that addressed different aspects of urban life in a futurist Jerusalem. Participants were asked to look beyond the current nation-state conflict and, instead, focus on ‘just’ the city as a place where, by mid-century, its citizenries co-exist in peace.
	In the News March 20, 2008 A solution for the US-Iran nuclear standoff Thomas R. Pickering, William Luers, and Jim WalshNew York Review of Books The recent National Intelligence Estimate's conclusion that Tehran stopped its efforts to develop nuclear weapons in 2003, together with the significant drop in Iranian activity in Iraq, has created favorable conditions for the US to hold direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program. The Bush administration should act on this opportunity, if for no other reason than that its current position is growing weaker, and without such an initiative, Iran will continue its efforts to produce nuclear fuel that might, in the future, be used to build nuclear weapons.
	Analysis + Opinion March 3, 2008 How to end the US-Iran standoff William Luers, Thomas Pickering and James WalshInternational Herald Tribune Continuing to try to sanction Iran has made life difficult for some Iranians but will not coerce Iran to change its commitment to a nuclear program.