Dividing up the Middle East and Uniting Amsterdam

Tom Ricks on Violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria and Russell Shorto on the Netherlands

Tom Ricks, a New America Foundation national security program fellow, explains to Anne-Marie Slaughter why he doesn’t foresee an end in sight for violence and war in the Middle East. What he does see, however, is a redrawing of national boundaries there. Russell Shorto, author of Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City, talks with Slaughter and New America Foundation and Zócalo editorial director Andrés Martinez about what the struggle for individual rights in the Netherlands can teach us in America.

Hosted by Anne-Marie Slaughter | November 8, 2013

Iran: Love Me, Love Me Not?

Tehran Has Shunned Washington for Over 30 Years. Is the Ice Melting?

by Sarah Rothbard | November 6, 2013

In 1979, George Lewis was an NBC correspondent in Iran covering the hostage crisis. Thirty-four years later and thousands of miles away, at a Zócalo event co-presented by Occidental College …

Sum Up Iran In Two Words

We’re Beyond the Era Of “Great Satan,” “Axis of Evil,” and Other Nasty Nicknames. So What’s a Good Two-Word Description Of Persia Today?

November 4, 2013

Back when relations between the United States and Iran were really bad, not just kind of bad, the Ayatollah Khomeini called the United States the “Great Satan” and a “wounded snake.” Today, …

Unibrow Battles and Growing Up Lebanese

It Was Easy to Buy a Pair of Tweezers. It Was Tougher to Figure Out Who I Was in Post-9/11 America.

by Maria Saab | October 8, 2013

Elementary and middle school yearbooks are laid out across my childhood bedroom in perfect rows, organized in chronological order, open to my class pages. Glancing over the faces of former …

What Can the Balkans Teach Us About Intervening in Syria?

I Led the NATO Campaign in the Kosovo War. We Learned Some Valuable Lessons From It.

by Wesley Clark | August 29, 2013

Once again, the United States appears poised to strike with its military forces in the Mideast, this time to sanction Syria’s regime for deploying chemical weapons against its own citizens. …

What The Young People of Egypt Learned

A Close Up Look at Four Young Egyptians Who Were Present at the Revolution

by Brian K. Barber | August 16, 2013

This summer Egyptians took to the streets in numbers that made their historic anti-Mubarak outpouring two-and-a-half years ago pale in comparison. Once again, the volume of the recent protests took …

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