Peace picks, November 21-25

The American Moment in the Middle East from Eisenhower to Trump |Monday, November 21 | 11:45am – 1:30pm | Hudson Institute | Click HERE to RegisterWith the election of a new president and significant foreign policy decisions on the line, one of the best ways to understand the stakes involved is to revisit the past. With the Middle East, there is no better place to start than with Dwight Eisenhower, the incisive leader who helped win World War II and formulated America’s Cold War policy. But according to Hudson Senior Fellow Michael Doran in his critically acclaimed new book, Ike’s Gamble, Eisenhower stumbled repeatedly in the Middle East before he got it right.
Eisenhower, in Doran’s account, initially made the same kinds of mistakes that President Barack Obama has made. Both believed America had tilted too closely to Israel and sought to readjust the balance—Obama by realigning with Iran, and Eisenhower by allying with Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. The difference, argues Doran, is that Eisenhower came to realize he was wrong to turn against America’s traditional Middle East allies and he eventually restored the status quo. Obama, however, leaves the White House with America’s position in the Middle East still unsettled. Will Donald Trump be able to repair Middle Eastern relations, or will he indulge isolationist tendencies and further cede America’s status in the region? Given the extent of Eisenhower’s engagement in the region, what other lessons can the next administration draw from his experience?
Join us at Hudson Institute on November 21 as panelists Michael Doran, Hudson Distinguished Fellow Walter Russell Mead, and Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Ray Takeyh discuss Eisenhower’s strategy and the incoming administration’s policy options in the Middle East. This lunchtime panel will be moderated by Hudson Senior Fellow Lee Smith.
Real Security: Governance and Stability in the Arab World | Monday, November 21 | 3:00pm – 4:30pm | Brookings Institution | Click HERE to RegisterThe breakdown of regional order in the Middle East was driven by domestic crises in the relationship between Arab citizens and their governments, but the resulting disorder has unleashed civil violence, sectarian and ethnic conflict, and fierce geopolitical competition. What is the relationship between the region’s power politics and the breakdown in the Arab social contract? What does the collapse of Arab governance tell us about the requisites for lasting stability in the Middle East? And what role can outside powers, especially the United States, play in helping the region move toward more sustainable governance?
On November 21, the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council and the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings will launch a report on this topic written by Tamara Cofman Wittes: “Real Security: The Interdependence of Governance and Stability in the Arab World.” The report was commissioned by the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Strategy Task Force (MEST), co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. To discuss the report, they will be joined by Amr Hamzawy, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Ambassador Series: Ambassador of Finland, H.E. Kristi Kauppi | Tuesday, November 22 | 6:00pm – 8:00pm | World Affairs Institute at the Ronald Reagan Building | Email to RegisterPlease join the World Affairs Council-Washington, DC as we host Her Excellency Kirsti Kauppi, Ambassador of Finland to the United States. She will address the US – Finland bi-lateral relationship, the country’s approaching centennial, Finland’s climate change research in the Arctic, and its relationship with Russia.
Ambassador Kauppi took up her post in Washington in September 2015. She has over 30 years of experience in foreign policy. She previously served as advisor to the Finnish State Secretary and head of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy coordination in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Helsinki. Her previous diplomatic postings include Permanent Representative to the UN-related international organizations located in Vienna, where she served for three years as the Finnish Governor in the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors.