News

• IDEAS Today: The Arab Spring
  The new issue of IDEAS Today focuses on the Arab Spring, with articles on Libya, Yemen, interventionism and more...
• New Special Report: Turkey's Global Strategy
  As we approach the Turkish parliamentary elections, this major new research report analyses Turkey's 'zero problems with neighbours' foreign policy.
• Re-Writing History - Al Majalla
  Bryan Gibson - In the 30 years since the start of the Iran-Iraq war, our understanding of the conflict has undergone periodic shifts. Today, thanks to the release of Iraqi documents that were previously classified, the willingness of participants to discuss the war, and the persistence of researchers, more is being learned about the war than ever before. On 23-24 September, policymakers, intelligence officers and scholars of the Iran-Iraq war met at the London School of Economics (LSE) to debate, discuss and reappraise the present state of knowledge on this brutal war that cost over 300,000 lives and permanently maimed thousands more.
• Both sides lost. And 22 years on, the US has too
  Nigel Ashton in The Times (behind pay-wall): ...political influence. What Khomeini could not achieve through war has been delivered instead through the ballot box.
• Iran and Iraq remember war that cost more than a million lives | World ...
  Ian Black of the Guardian looks at the week thirty years ago when Saddam Hussein launched a 'whirlwind war' that lasted eight years. He closes with a reference to 'Reappraising the Iran-Iraq War Thirty Years Later', a conference co-hosted by LSE IDEAS.
• Lebanon: Blair's other Middle East mistake | Chris Phillips | Guardian
  9 Sep 2010: Chris Phillips: A Journey presents Blair's actions during the 2006 Lebanon war as those of a committed ideologue, not simply Bush's poodle
• Syria and the west: another wasted decade | Chris Phillips | Guardian
  25 Jul 2010: Chris Phillips: Ten years of bullying has failed. If the west wants a more peaceful, democratic Middle East it must be friendlier to Syria
• Miliband's grand Middle East delusion | Chris Phillips | Guardian
  12 Mar 2010: Chris Phillips: The foreign secretary is wrong: Britain's soft power in the Middle East has much greater influence than its show of force in Iraq
• IDEAS Today Issue 1: Silent Majority
  Silent Majority - Palestinian Jordanians and the search for identity: Amman’s Downtown district is no postcard picture. Whilst neighbouring cities Damascus and Jerusalem are blessed with ancient architecture, the centre of Jordan’s capital seems to be inspired primarily by 1960s Soviet aesthetics.
• Syria's Assad: pariah to power-broker | Chris Phillips | Guardian
  17 Feb 2010: Chris Phillips: It's a remarkable recovery in political and economic fortune that sees Syria and Assad being courted by the west and Arabs alike
• King Hussein of Jordan: a political life, by Nigel Ashton
  Sir Mark Allen, LSE IDEAS Advisory Board: Nigel Ashton, a Professor at the LSE and Head of the LSE Middle East International Affairs Programme, "has written a lucid and thorough life of King Hussein, who ruled Jordan from 1953 to 1999. Students of the Arab–Israeli dispute must read this book, but so should many others."
• Reassessing The Special Relationship
  Chair of the IDEAS advisory board Lord William Wallace and Christopher Phillips, Programme Assistant of the Middle East International Affairs Programme, co-authored an article in International Affairs in 2009 which has had significant impact with UK policymakers.
• Just What's Happening in Algeria?
  The assassination of the Algerian chief of national police Colonel Ali Tounsi coincides with the standoff between the Turkish Government and the military establishment. In Algeria, a conflict of similar colouring has been underway for several months.
• Call for Papers: Reappraising the Iran-Iraq War Thirty Years Later
  The LSE International History Department, LSE IDEAS, and LSE Global Governance are soliciting abstracts for a conference entitled "Reappraising the Iran-Iraq War Thirty Years Later". The conference will take place in London on 23-24 September 2010. Proposals of up to 500 words and a CV should be sent to the conference organizers by 30 April 2010.

News from the region

• 'Scores killed' in shelling of Syria's Homs
  "Makeshift hospitals overflowing with dead and wounded" as the military bombards opposition areas for a sixth day.
• Jordan ex-spy chief held over graft charges
  Mohammad al-Dahabi, former intelligence head, detained on charges of money laundering, abuse of power and embezzlement.
• General strike enters second day in Israel
  Main labour federation shuts down banks and ports to force government to hire contract workers and improve conditions.

• Obama condemns onslaught on Homs
  President Obama condemns as "outrageous bloodshed" the continuing onslaught aimed at crushing rebels in the Syrian city of Homs.
• Egypt PM dismisses US aid threat
  Egypt's prime minister says it will not be persuaded by the potential loss of US aid to end a probe into foreign-funded non-governmental organisations.
• North Africa gets giant car plant
  The biggest car factory in North Africa, run by French firm Renault, is officially opened near the Moroccan city of Tangiers.