Brookings Press Blog

Akbar Ahmed to Star in One Man Show: “Waziristan to Washington: A Muslim at the Crossroads”

Akbar Ahmed, one of the word's leading authorities on Islam, will perform an original play based on his life on Sunday, November 1, at 7:30 p.m. in Washington, D.C. “Waziristan to Washington: A Muslim at the Crossroads” takes us back to his birthplace and traces the evolution of modern Pakistan, the rise of Islamic extremism, efforts to achieve integration in the modern world, and attempts to build bridges through dialogue.

This multi-media production marks the formal launch of the Wana Initiative on Conflict and Cultural Dialogue. It will be hosted by the Washington Hebrew Congregation and is cosponsored by the Washington DCJCC. The event is free and open to the public; registration is required.

- Register for the performance
- Learn more about “Waziristan to Washington”
- Read about Akbar Ahmed’s previous book, Journey into Islam

Elaine Kamarck Interview on "Primary Politics": Presidential Nominating Process is Out of Control

Elaine Kamarck recently appeared on BroadSide, a program from New England Cable News. Talking about her book Primary Politics, Kamarck said the presidential nominating process is out of control. If she could change one thing, she “would allow the later states, the states in May and June, to be winner takes all.” This adjustment would focus the candidates’ attention on the people of states who are often overlooked in the primary elections.

- Learn more about Primary Politics

Brookings Press Author Testifies Before Senate Panel

On October 21, in testimony before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, Vanda Felbab-Brown—author of the forthcoming book Shooting Up: Counterinsurgency and the War on Drugs—discussed how narcotics production influences security, political, and economic developments in Afghanistan. She also examined the effectiveness of policies to mitigate these effects, offering recommendations for U.S. policy, and equally critically, urging strategic patience: “Meaningful and sustainable progress on narcotics that also advances counterinsurgency and counterterrorism objectives, mitigates conflict, and enhances state building and human security of the Afghan people will take many years and easily decades. Without realistic timelines, there is a real danger that even a well-designed counternarcotics policy will be prematurely and unfortunately discarded as ineffective and that a desire for short-term self-satisfying outcomes will once again drive policy toward ineffective and counterproductive results.”

- Read Felbab-Brown’s testimony.

- Listen to Felbab-Brown discuss opium production in Afghanistan with NPR’s Noah Adams.

- Learn more about Shooting Up.

Brookings Asks “Is America Really an Opportunity Society?”

On Tuesday, October 27, Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill will discuss their new Brookings Press book, Creating an Opportunity Society, which explores how to help more people achieve the American Dream. The event will be moderated by E.J. Dionne, Washington Post columnist and senior fellow at Brookings. Panelists will include David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times; Linda Gibbs, Deputy Mayor of Health and Human Services for New York City; Haskins and Sawhill, both senior fellows in Economic Studies at Brookings; and Juan Williams, senior correspondent for NPR and political analyst for Fox News Channel.

- Register for the event
- Check out David Brooks’s column in The New York Times
- Read E.J. Dionne's column in The Washington Post
- Learn more about Creating an Opportunity Society

"Limits of Influence" Receives Award

The American Academy of Diplomacy has awarded the 2009 Douglas Dillon Award for Distinguished Writing on American Diplomacy to Ambassador Howard B. Schaffer for his book, The Limits of Influence: America’s Role in Kashmir. The Limits of Influence represents the first systematic history of U.S. efforts to help forge a settlement between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Drawing on interviews with senior American officials, historical research, and his decades of experience in South Asia, Schaffer explains and evaluates three generations of U.S. activities and policies toward the volatile region. The award will be presented at the Academy’s annual awards luncheon at the U.S. Department of State in December 2009.

Previous Dillon Book Award winners from Brookings include Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis, by Joel Wit, Daniel Poneman, and Robert Gallucci (2005) and Massive Entanglement, Marginal Influence: Carter and Korea in Crisis by William J. Gleysteen, Jr. (2000).

Brookings Authors Debate U.S. Options in Afghanistan

On Friday, October 16, the Brookings Institution will host a panel discussion on President Obama’s policy options in Afghanistan. The event will be moderated by Martin Indyk, vice president of foreign policy studies at Brookings, and the panelists will include: Representative Jane Harman (D-Calif.), chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment; Paul Pillar, former deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and author of BIP’s Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy; Brookings senior fellow Michael O’Hanlon, author of Budgeting for Hard Power: Defense and Security Spending Under Barack Obama; and Brookings senior fellow Bruce Riedel, author of The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future.

- Register for the event.

- Watch Michael O’Hanlon discuss Afghanistan with Bob Schieffer on CBS’ Face the Nation. 

- Read a recent interview with Bruce Riedel on the danger of delay in Afghan policymaking.

“Primary Politics” Event Wrap Ups

Blogger and columnist Tom Schaller offers two recaps of the recent Brookings event for Elaine Kamarck’s new book Primary Politics. In a post on the blog FiveThirtyEight.com, Schaller outlines the main points presented by the panelists and offers his own observations. He writes that “Kamarck noted that for the first time the Republicans, who historically have only permitted rule changes to be considered at their quadrennial national conventions, are now also looking at their own presidential nomination process during the interim between 2008 and 2012.”

In his column in the Baltimore Sun, Schaller emphasized that the rules of the primaries matter. They can and do affect the outcome of elections. He quotes Kamarck as saying that “last year the Democrats' proportional allocation rule for delegates prevented Mrs. Clinton from racking up delegates in the big primary states she won, including New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Had all state contests been winner-take-all, Kamarck estimates the former New York senator would have won the primary by about 300 delegates.”

- Read more about the event on FiveThirtyEight.com

- Check out Tom Schaller’s column in the Baltimore Sun

- View the transcript of the event

- Learn more about Primary Politics

Bruce Riedel on “The Next Nuclear Nightmare”

Despite two Taliban attacks that left scores dead in Pakistan over the past week, the Pakistani people see America as a bigger threat to their security than terrorists writes Bruce Riedel in The Daily Beast. Riedel, a Brookings senior fellow and author of The Search for Al Qaeda, points to polls that show Pakistanis fear the United States is a danger to their country and their stash of nuclear weapons. Riedel says:

It is against this background of deep animosity to the U.S. that Pakistanis are watching the debate inside the Obama administration about the future of the NATO mission in neighboring Afghanistan. . . . In this atmosphere, the president and his team need to remember that everything he does in Afghanistan affects what happens next door. If he shows resolve in Afghanistan, Pakistanis won’t love us, but they will believe we are serious and determined to stay until a stable Afghanistan and Pakistan emerges. If it appears the United States cannot make up its mind about what to do, then Pakistanis will say I told you so and make their own accommodations.

- Read the rest of Riedel’s article.
- Learn more about The Search for Al Qaeda.

Vanda Felbab-Brown Argues “It’s All or Nothing in Afghanistan”

Writing in The Daily Beast, Brookings fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown, author of the forthcoming book Shooting Up, analyzes the options the United States faces in Afghanistan. Lack of public support for beefed-up counterinsurgency and the questionable effectiveness of selective strikes, she argues, have led many analysts to propose options that lie between these two extremes. But such proposals, according to Felbab-Brown, “are unlikely to reverse the deteriorating security and produce a self-sufficient Afghan government….We should not delude ourselves that the middle is the golden path. Instead, we need to decide how much we care about the stakes and whether we are willing to resource the mission properly to achieve them. If not, cutting losses now may well be preferable to depleting blood and treasure while caught up in a downward spiral. It will only become harder to portray a later pullout as a strategic choice rather than defeat.”

- Read the rest of Felbab-Brown’s article.

- Read Felbab-Brown’s recent testimony before the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Relations, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, on how drug enterprises affect U.S. national security and global stability.

- Learn more about Shooting Up.

Newsweek/Washington Post’s On Faith looks at Akbar Ahmed’s Journey into America

Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, a leading expert on Islam and author of Journey into Islam, recently completed a tour to uncover the status of Muslims in America. With a team of researchers, he visited more than 70 U.S. cities to interview thousands of Muslims and non-Muslims from all walks of life. He presents the findings of the project in a documentary film and a forthcoming book, Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam.

- Read what the Newsweek/Washington Post’s On Faith blog had to say about the film

- Order tickets for a screening and discussion of the film at the Washington National Cathedral on October 25

- Read about Akbar Ahmed’s previous book, Journey into Islam

- Visit the Journey into America blog