Sick man on the Nile

DAVID SCHENKER, director at the Washington Institute's Program on Arab Politics traces the decline of Cairo's regional stature stating that Egyptian dominance of the Middle East and the Nile basin in Africa was increasingly being questioned while Egypt was increasingly turning inward. In an opinion piece in The Weekly Standard, "Sick Man on the Nile", he cautions that a weakening Egypt would further complicate U.S. regional security architecture in the Middle East in the wake of  reorientation in Ankara and Beirut away from the West and a strengthened Iran-Syria axis and recommends initiatives to reverse a weakening of Egyptian power in the region.

Diplomacy in Persia

Kayhan Barzegar, senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies in Tehran states that Iran would not concede its claim to the nuclear fuel cycle on which there is broad consensus within the Irani elite and Iran could prove vital in bringing lasting security to the Middle East. In an article in The Washington Quarterly, "Iran's Foreign Policy Strategy After Saddam", he recommends that the Obama administration engage in meaningful diplomacy with Tehran and not give in to the temptation of isolating and weakening Iran, which would impinge on U.S. goals of stability, non-proliferation and resolution of ongoing regional conflicts.