Fallujah, located 40 miles west of Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, has long been known as the “city of mosques.” But since its capture by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Shia militias fighting to take the predominantly Sunni city have bestowed other epithets on Fallujah. One militia leader compared it to a “tumor” […]

Death of Hezbollah’s Military Commander Signifies a Disturbing Trend for the Shiite militia May 2016 came in with a bang; this time, the leadership of the Shiite militia Hezbollah is at the receiving end.  The cousin and brother-in-law of the late terror mastermind Imad Mougniyah and head of military operations for Hezbollah, Mustafa Badreddine, was […]

According to CNN Money, in 2014, 64,000 residents left Puerto Rico. That’s more than double the rate in 2010, according to the Pew Research Center. Puerto Ricans are heading to Texas or Florida to find jobs because the island is on the verge of fiscal default unless the US government intervenes. Until issues are resolved […]

BY ANDREA BLINKHORN AND JONATHAN HUI Driving down Puritan Avenue in the Martin Park neighborhood in northwest Detroit, it’s hard not to feel a sense of emptiness. Many houses are boarded up and crumbling, lying in a state of long-time disrepair that belies the ornate architectural styles that used to define the city. A short […]

In Spring 2016, JMEPP Associate Editor Satgin Hamrah interviewed Ambassador Dennis Ross, the special Middle East Coordinator under former US President Bill Clinton during his visit to the Middle East Initiative at Harvard’s Belfer Center. Below is an excerpt from the interview on diplomacy in the MENA region as well as his role in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.  

Earlier this month the Africa Policy Journal sat down with Herman J. Cohen, a former U.S. ambassador to several African countries, advisor to multiple U.S. Presidents, and a 38-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service. During his time in Africa, Cohen developed relationships with African leaders including South African President Nelson Mandela and Libyan leader […]

  The Harvard Kennedy School hosted Secretary Ernest Moniz as part of The Robert McNamara Lecture on War and Peace, co-sponsored by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs on April 14th, 2016. Dr. Moniz focused a large part of his discussion on the Iran negotiations, specifically the role science played in fostering an […]

An interview with Diego Molano Vega, Minister of Information Technologies and Communications of Colombia. Diego Molano Vega has been the Minister of Information Technologies and Communications of Colombia since 2010. In this interview, he reveals his perspective on one of the most challenging issues for the development of Latin America: keeping pace with the changes […]

Banafsheh Keynoush is an international geopolitical consultant, foreign affairs scholar, and author of “Saudi Arabia and Iran: Friends or Foes?” (Palgrave Macmillan, February 2016).  The book is based on dozens of interviews with Saudi and Iranian leaders, politicians and decision makers, and rich archival material collected and made available for the first time in English. […]

Ban Ki-Moon’s criticism of Morocco’s 40-year “occupation” of Western Sahara during his visit to the territory on March 8, 2016 has sparked the most serious crisis in the region in decades. Morocco denounced the Secretary General’s “biased” rhetoric, and “irreversibly” expelled U.N. peacekeepers stationed in Western Sahara. The U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western […]

BY JUSTIN REYNOLDS The bus trundled to a stop in front of a dismal looking barbed wire gate. The vodka from the previous night still featured prominently in my thoughts as I struggled to build a picture of a place I never thought I would visit: Russia.  It was the third day of a week-long […]

Living Under ISIS Under existing United States law, asylum-seekers having given material support to designated terrorist organizations cannot apply for asylum in the United States. This is called the material support statute under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and is meant to protect the United States from admitting potentially dangerous refugees. In the Syrian […]