On Friday, POMED and the Heinrich Böll Foundation will host a luncheon discussion, entitled "U.S. Military Assistance: Obstacle or Opportunity for Reform?" Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations and Emile Hokayem of the Stimson Center will discuss the role of U.S. military aid to non-democratic allies in the Arab world and how the U.S. can pursue strategic military cooperation without undermining principles of human rights and democratic reform. The luncheon ...

On Friday, the Project on Middle East Democracy, along with the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, hosted a roundtable to discuss the findings of POMED’s recent policy workshop.  The workshop, the second in a two-part series, took place over the previous two days and brought together fifteen leaders from the United States, Europe and the Middle East to explore existing multilateral frameworks designed to promote ...

POMED is excited to announce that we are now accepting applications for our upcoming series of conferences in the Middle East.  These will bring together young American and European professionals with reformists working in the Middle East to examine political reform dynamics in Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt and the role of U.S. foreign policy on the prospects for reform in those countries.  Ultimately, the conferences will produce recommendations for U.S. policymakers on how to ...

Yesterday afternoon, POMED and the Heinrich Böll Foundation released a new publication, The Federal Budget and Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2010: Democracy, Governance, and Human Rights in the Middle East, written by POMED’s Director of Advocacy Stephen McInerney.  McInerney presented the report’s findings, launching a discussion with Thomas Melia of Freedom House and Marina Ottaway of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  Andrew Albertson, Executive Director of POMED, moderated. McInerney highlighted ...

In this past weekend's New York Times, James Traub writes about the ideological tightrope President Obama must walk in his upcoming speech to the Muslim world in Cairo on Thursday. Obama has so-far managed to use the language of both "realists, who typically address the behavior of regimes, and of idealists, who...have sought to speak directly to the aspirations of ordinary citizens" in balancing strategic relations with less-democratic allies while ...

POMED hosted a discussion of its new report, written by Gregory Aftandilian and titled “Looking Forward: An Integrated Strategy for Democracy and Human Rights in Egypt.” Aftandilian has worked as a foreign policy advisor for congressmen, the State Department, and the Defense Department. The discussants were Neil Hicks, International Policy Advisor to Human Rights First, Tom Malinowski, Washington Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch, and Ambassador Edward S. Walker, Jr., ...

Monday, October 27, 2008 8:15am Wilson: Secularism in the Muslim Diaspora 12:00pm MEI: What's Next for Palestinian Refugees: Gaza, the West Bank, and Beyond 6:30pm WAC: Ambassador Series with the Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani Tuesday, October 28, 2008 9:00am Brookings: Turkey, the Region and US-Turkey Relations: Assessing the Challenges and Prospects 9:30am CCAS: Uncovering Iraq: Trajectories of Disintegration and Transformation 12:00pm MEI: The Search for al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future Wednesday, October 29, ...

This afternoon, POMED and the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies hosted James Traub, contributing writer of the New York Times Magazine; and Michele Dunne, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment, to discuss Traub's new book, The Freedom Agenda: Why America Must Spread Democracy (Just Not the Way George Bush Did). The event was moderated by David DeBartolo, POMED's Director of Dialogue Programs.Jim Traub lamented the Bush Administration's contamination of democracy ...

Monday, September 22, 2008 2:00pm Project on Middle East Democracy: A Time of Transition: U.S. Impact on Reform in a Changing Middle East Tuesday, September 23, 2008 10:00am New America: Jihadists’ Revolt Against Al Qaeda 10:00am Wilson: The Other Euro-Islam: Sufism in Turkey and the Balkans 12:00pm Heritage: They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It 12:00pm MEI: How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al-Qaeda 1:30pm Brookings: Reforming U.S. ...

Monday, September 8, 2008 12:00pm Wilson Center: Freedom "After" Speech, Saad Eddin Ibrahim 1:30pm U.S. Institute of Peace: Antiquities in Iraq: Cultural Heritage and Iraq's Future 6:30pm World Affairs Council: Author Series Event with Marwan Mausher - The Arab Center 7:00pm Politics and Prose: Ron Suskind Tuesday, September 9, 2008 11:00am Heritage Foundation: Politics, Priorities, and American Defense Spending 12:00pm Middle East Institute: Dubai & Co.: Global Strategies for Doing Business in the Gulf States 3:30pm New ...

Wednesday August 6, 2008 11:oo Brookings Institution: Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan: U.S. Foreign Policy Challenges This Fall and Beyond 3:30 Brookings Institution: The Implications of Turkey’s Constitutional Court Decision on the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Thursday August 7, 2008 2:00 NDI/IRI: New Directions for Democracy Promotion: Opportunities and Challenges for the Next Administration in Pursuing Global Good Governance 7:00 Politics & Prose: Kenneth Pollack And you can always check out POMED’s Events ...

Today, the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), the Middle East Institute (MEI), and Americans for Informed Diplomacy (AID) hosted a discussion with representatives from three conferences sponsored this spring by POMED and AID, in which young Middle Eastern and American leaders developed and ratified policy recommendations on how to improve America’s impact on Middle East reform. The participants included Erika Spaet and Sara Ait Imoudden from the Rabat ...

Tuesday July 29, 2008 12:00 Middle East Institute/Project on Middle East Democracy: Democratic Development in the Middle East and North Africa 2:00 United States Institute of Peace: Thwarting Afghanistan's Insurgency: A Pragmatic Approach to Peace and Reconciliation 4:00 Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia: Update on the Situation in Lebanon Wednesday July 30, 2008 10:00 United States Institute of Peace: Iraqi Minister of Interior, Jawad al-Bolani 12:00 Wilson Center: The US and the Middle ...

Yesterday, the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) held a discussion regarding the current political crisis in Turkey and the potential consequences for Turkey, the broader Middle East, U.S. relations with the region, and prospects for democracy. Panelists included Abdullah Akyuz, President of TUSIAD, the United States office of Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association, Bulent Aliriza, Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Director ...

POMED Research Associate Alex Taurel and our Director of Research Shadi Hamid write an interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor about the implications for democracy in the Middle East if Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is shut down by the Constitutional Court. They assert that it would send a troubling message to Islamists in the region that no matter how much they moderate, they will not ...

Monday July 14, 2008 10:00 USIP: Israel's Airstrike on Syria's Nuclear Reactor: Preventive War and the Nonproliferation Regime Tuesday July 15, 2008 11:00 Freedom House: Fighting Internet Censorship Wednesday July 16, 2008 10:00 American Enterprise Institute: The Frontline Country Team: A New Model for Building Security Partnerships 12:00 Middle East Institute: Can the Taliban Win in Pakistan? Thursday July 17, 2008 2:00 Senate Appropriations Committee: FY09 State and Foreign Operations Markup 3:30 Heritage Foundation: Notions of Liberty in Islam Friday ...

Monday July 7, 2008 No events scheduled. Tuesday July 8, 2008 9:00 SAIS: "Conflict Prevention and Resolution Forum: Isolation vs. Engagement: When Diplomats Do Their Job" 2:30 Senate Committee on Foreign Relations: Meeting The Iranian Challenge 3:00 Brookings: Europe's Role in Nation-Building Wednesday July 9, 2008 10:00 House Committee on Foreign Affairs: U.S. Policy Towards Iran 12:00 Center for National Policy: Mapping the Global Future 2:00 Subcommittee on Europe and Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia: Europe ...

On Tuesday, the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) and the Heinrich Boll Foundation hosted a panel discussion regarding the role of women in the Middle East and strategies that could be pursued to improve their participation in society. Panelists included Rama Chakaki, Founder and CEO of the Dubai-based Baraka Group, Lama Hourani, Advisor to the PLO Secretariat General and former Gaza Branch Coordinator of the Palestinian Working Woman ...

The Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran, composed of groups across the political spectrum including POMED, is hosting a “Time to Talk with Iran” event and press conference from 10am to 1pm at the Canon House Office building. Members of Congress, celebrities, former officials, and other citizens will use a row of 60’s-era red “hotline” telephones to talk directly to ordinary Iranian citizens. The event aims to underscore the need ...

Shibley Telhami of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution presented his most recent polling research entitled "Views from the Middle East: Public Opnion in the Arab World" conducted by the University of Maryland and Zogby International covering public opinion in six Arab states (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and UAE). Poll questions included topics such as Lebanese Politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, views of ...