In light of the ongoing controversy over Benghazi, the New York Times’ Room for Debate asked contributors to weigh in on Hillary Clinton’s record as secretary of state. Read more »

Women in the Middle East stand to play a vital role in the region’s economic and political future, if given the opportunity. This week at the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Bank’s senior adviser to the chief economist for the Middle East and North Africa, Nadereh Chamlou, spoke about women’s economic empowerment in the Arab world. Today, my colleague Reza Aslan–author of books including No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam and adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations—writes about Chamlou’s remarks and the challenges to women’s participation in the workforce. Read more »

Pervez Musharraf, former general and president of Pakistan, returned to Karachi yesterday after years in exile to contest the country’s upcoming national election expected later this spring. As the election season heats up, many Pakistanis are expressing concern that the anticipated vote will be derailed for one reason or another. Imran Riffat, a former financial industry professional and longtime Pakistan observer, provides a guest post today arguing that Pakistan’s future would be best served by pushing forward with the democratic process, despite its limitations. Read more »

“It is time for an uprising of women in the Arab world,” writes Hanin Ghaddar, managing editor of NOW News in Lebanon in the second annual publication to mark International Women’s Day by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Middle East Program. Read more »

This week at the Council on Foreign Relations, I hosted two women’s rights leaders visiting New York from Libya and Egypt for the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The two leaders, Zahra Langhi and Fatemah Kafaghy, are participating in the CSW as part of a delegation from Karama, a nonprofit that aims to empower Arab women leaders. Read more »

With the ten year mark of the 2003 Iraq war on the horizon, a new report from the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) is a must-read. Learning from Iraq: A Final Report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction expands on the organization’s mandate to figure out, in the words of the inspector general, “what happened to the billions of dollars expended to rebuild that country?” Read more »

Yesterday, my colleague Dan Markey published a compelling new CFR Policy Innovation Memorandum (PIM), Support Process Over Personalities in Pakistan. In it, he argues that the United States should avoid playing favorites as Pakistani leadership transitions unfold over the course of 2013, starting with parliamentary elections later this spring. I’ve asked him to write a guest post about the PIM. Read more »

This week, I had the pleasure of hosting courageous Fawzia Koofi at the Council on Foreign Relations. Koofi is one of sixty-nine female members of Afghanistan’s 249-seat lower house of parliament. As she likes to note, she was elected to her seat by beating out a male candidate–above and beyond the quota system that preserves 25 percent of parliament for women. Elected as parliament’s first female deputy speaker, she plans to run for president in the 2014 elections. Read more »

Tunisian opposition political leader Chokri Belaid was assassinated outside his home on Wednesday, a day after he warned about the possibility of political violence in Tunisia. This violent turn marks an inflection point for the country’s shaky transition: will the government be willing and able to establish law and order in a way that protects dissenting political speech, or will political violence spiral out of control? Political violence also stands to undermine Egypt’s transition. Today, the Associated Press reports that Egypt’s government is providing enhanced security in opposition leaders’ neighborhoods “after several hardline Muslim clerics issued religious edicts calling for them to be killed.” For an on-the-ground perspective, I’ve asked Zied Mhirsi, one of Tunisia’s most popular bloggers, an ardent advocate of freedom, and a cofounder of the website Tunisia Live, to write a guest post.  Read more »

The second anniversary of Egypt’s revolution brought with it significant violence, a state of emergency in three cities, and a welcomed moment of “back from the brink” political unity. Today, opposing groups from across the political spectrum (including Coptic Christians and members of the Muslim Brotherhood) gathered for talks facilitated by the grand imam of Al-Azhar and denounced violence in a signed declaration. Read more »