Middle East & North Africa

 “The international communities are helping,” said Dr. Husn Banu Ghazanfar, Minister of Women Affairs, Afghanistan, who delivered the keynote address. “But I request help from the international community for the education and capacity-building.” Ghazanfar also emphasized the need for western help rebuilding infrastructure, like roads, schools and hospitals, damaged in the war.

It is almost an iron law of diplomacy: the more rigid a policy becomes, the more likely it is to be counter-productive. When the policy is one of enforcement through sanctions, which imply at some point an ultimatum and possible use of force if there is no compliance, the risks associated with rigid policy become much higher.

What is the measure of appropriate firmness? If we take at face value the current arguments being used in American diplomacy right now, that metric is largely about principle. The assumption appears to be that if the United States is right to oppose Iran’s nuclear activity, then it must be justified in pursuing a rigid and escalating policy to force a reversal. This tendency toward a no compromise position has been reinforced now that the United States has marshaled significant international support, not least in the UN Security Council from Russia and China, for action against Iran’s nuclear program.

To be able to conduct diplomacy from a position of such strength is a luxury. It is also deceptively seductive. It is no guarantee of success.
The application of a coercive strategy is not as rational a process as U.S. policy seems to assume. Coercive strategy has to be deeply personal and, above all, a psychological undertaking.

The aim is to convince the opposing leaders on a personal level that continued opposition is too costly. Thus, the only measure of appropriate firmness in the case of U.S. policy toward Iran can be that which will bend the Iranian leadership to the will of the United States, its allies and the UN Security Council.

For a regime whose very ethos is built on deeply negative views of the United States (its support to the Shah and his brutal secret police, support to Israel, support to Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, and U.S. leadership of invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, thus putting U.S. military forces to Iran’s east and west), this aim of forcing submission of the Iranian regime through economic sanctions may be, prima facie at least, almost pointless – short of the threat of invasion and regime change.

The policy trap of relying on the moral certainty of a position can be confounded by several other factors that appear to be in play. One is confusion about means and ends.

The desired end point for the United States and many of its allies is to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. If sanctions are the main tool of this policy, the analysis of means and ends needs to address their effectiveness in making Iran comply with the U.N. Security Council demands. The evidence to date is not good. In 2008, the U.S. Government Accounting Office concluded, like so many others, that the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran was “unclear”. According to Dr Diana Gregor, a specialist in this subject cited by the Jerusalem Post on 9 January 2011, “sanctions so far have hit the country’s economy quite hard, but have not had an effect on the mullahs’ regime”. Diplomacy is not exclusively about “right is might”.  

Secretary of State Clinton cited to CNN on 12 January 2011 a statement of the outgoing Head of Israeli intelligence that a “combination of sanctions and covert actions have significantly slowed down the Iranian program”. The latter measure (covert action) may have had more effect than sanctions. Perhaps “might is right”. But there is room to doubt that covert attacks on Iran by Israel or the United States will make it more likely to bend to U.N. Security Council demands.  There may, however, now be a breathing space for the United States, Israel and Iran to search for mutually tolerable but different policies.   

Click here to read this piece in New Europe

Afghan women politicians spoke directly about their experiences, from the real personal risks they took running for office to the difficulties of making policy in a society traditionally ruled by men.

“We women are challenged daily in our lives inside and outside the parliament,” said Shinkai Karokhail, a two-term MP. She cited the difficulty of assuring education for girls (female literacy in Afghanistan is under 20%) and women’s own lack of confidence in themselves as leaders after years of disenfranchisement.

Karokhail also pointed out that the pres­ence of Afghan women in Parlia­ment, as­sured in part thanks to a constitution­ally-mandated quota, should not be mis­tak­en for po­lit­ical power. Accord­ing to sev­eral partic­ipants, the prospect of rec­on­cil­iation with the Tal­iban – with the po­lit­ical compro­mises that might entail – could un­der­mine the fu­ture of Afghan women in Parlia­ment and society.

One of the strongest recommendations to emerge from the conference was the idea of creating a standing regional group to connect Afghan women with women from other Muslim countries.

“We’re a little more familiar with the culture and context of what the Afghan women are facing and we have similar backgrounds, so we’d be able to help them enact the kind of changes that we’ve had in our countries towards women’s empowerment,” said Donya Aziz, an MP from Pakistan.

The conference also explored how people in the West—in particular, women parliamentarians--can support women in Afghanistan. Recommendations ranged from helping women build their own capacities as conflict mediators to rebuilding necessary infrastructure.

Margareta Cederfelt, an MP from Sweden, said that she and her counterparts can offer knowledge and help rebuilding civil society, but that perhaps the most immediate help they can offer is an e-mail address. She explained, “It’s hard to be a politician without a network.”

Nasim Zehra, a television journalist from Pakistan, said that there was a consensus for raising the accountability of the Afghan government toward women. She added: “ From our Afghan colleagues, there was the general feeling that it’s about time that there are less words and more action.”

Click here to read New Europe's interviews with conference participants.

“In recent years, conflict prevention has gotten bogged down in long, expensive peacekeeping and development missions,” says Matthew King, head of the EastWest Institute’s Preventive Diplomacy Initiatives. “We need actions that are effective, immediate and responsive, using the resources that we have at our disposal right now.”

The conference, which continues today, aims to produce concrete recommendations, many focused on the United Nations. Participants broadly agreed that the U.N. needs to work more collaboratively with regional organizations and NGOs, some pointing out that effective cooperation already exists on the ground.

Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, As­sistant Sec­retary-General for Po­lit­ical Affairs in the United Nations, said that pre­ventive diplomacy in the U.N. needs flexible funding to respond rapidly to conflicts. Of his de­part­ment, he said, “We rely enor­mously on extra bud­getary spending. What we do need is pre­dictable, secure sources of funding.”

More funding for preventive action was a theme that resonated throughout the conference, with many participants pointing out that while preventive action costs a fraction of peacekeeping operations, it often lacks financial support.

Nick Mabey, advi­sor to for­mer British Prime Min­is­ter Tony Blair, proposed that to identi­fy partic­ularly unsta­ble regions and help show the val­ue of pre­ventive action, a mech­a­nism for cred­ible, independent risk as­sess­ment and mon­itor­ing should be estab­lished. “If well man­aged, such a process would pro­vide a crit­ical way of stim­u­lating me­dia and po­lit­ical inter­est and emerg­ing crises,” Mabey explained.

Some of the most positive points emerged from a discussion on regional organizations like ASEAN and the African Union, which reported on mechanisms they use to prevent violent conflict -- in particular, the A.U.’s right to intervene.

“The more we learn about what the oth­er regional orga­ni­zations are do­ing and how they have been successful, the more confident we can be to fol­low some of these estab­lished steps,” said Ambassador Ong Keng Yong, for­mer Sec­retary General, ASEAN; Di­rector of Pol­icy Stud­ies, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Pol­icy at the National Uni­versity of Singapore.

Partic­ipants explored how the United States and the Eu­ropean Union can better work togeth­er to pre­vent conflicts. Ambassador Guenter Overfeld, Vice Pres­ident of Regional Secu­rity and Conflict Pre­vention, EWI, says working togeth­er on pre­ventive action can be a val­uable way to reinvig­orate the trans-Atlantic relation­ship. “The U.S. and Eu­rope need more co­op­eration on the strate­gic lev­el on this agenda,” he added.

While the day saw a great deal of consensus, a discus­sion on the role of the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – in conflict pre­vention generated more debate. Some partic­ipants doubted that BRIC can op­erate as a po­lit­ical unit, giv­en exis­t­ing differ­ences. Still oth­ers pointed out that BRIC countries already show support for pre­ventive action and perhaps their full role is just be­ginning.

Today’s conference could be the beginning of a permanent review process for conflict prevention.

Dr. Franziska Katharina Brantner, MEP, who co-hosted the conference, said, “A lot of speakers have been mentioning a platform that galvanizes more political action. It would be great to institutionalize an annual gathering and, of course, it would be great if it could happen at the European Parliament.”

The conference continues today with a special focus on women’s role in stabilizing Afghanistan and regional approaches to preventive action.

A full report of the conference and its recommendations will follow.

Click here to view New Europe's special supplement on the Global Conference.

Event Report

Robert Pape is firmly convinced that if the United States relies much less on boots on the ground in hotspots such as Iraq and Afghanistan and more on the strategy he calls “offshore balancing,” the number of suicide bombings will decrease dramatically. The University of Chicago professor and co-author of the new Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism & How to Stop it, spoke at the EastWest Institute on November 11.

Pape, who recently consulted with the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, said that he was struck by the lack of research about suicide terrorism after September 11, prompting him to try to fill that void.

“Suicide terrorism is the lung cancer of terrorism,” Pape explains. “It’s the biggest threat we face.”

Likening his efforts to that of a research pathologist, Pape worked with the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism to compile a searchable database of the 2,200 suicide attacks that occurred between 1980 and 2008. According to Pape, each attack is corroborated by at least two independent sources and the database includes over 10,000 relevant documents.

“The data is good,” Pape said. And it needs to be, as his argument is entirely founded on statistical analysis.

To begin with, Pape argues that many of the tactics used in the War on Terror have actually encouraged more suicide terrorism. The evidence? From 1980 to 2003, there were a little under 350 suicide terrorists attacks, 15% of which were anti-American, while from 2004-2009, the world saw 1,833 suicide attacks, 92% of which were directed against America. 87 % of these were in U.S.-occupied Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Also, the attackers were mainly from the Arabian peninsula, where U.S. troops have been stationed since 1990.

“Foreign occupation is the trigger for religious and secular suicide terrorism, just like smoking is the trigger for lung cancer,” Pape declares.

Pape insists that it’s misleading to see Islamic fundamentalism as the trigger for suicide terrorism—or as primarily a martyr’s bid for a virgin-filled heaven. However abhorrent, suicide terrorism is a tactic based on a clear internal logic aimed at  coercing democracies into withdrawing troops from prized territories, he adds. The evidence? When the troops go home, the attacks decrease.

For instance, Hezbollah, which launched suicide bombings during the Israeli occupation in the early 1980s, has not waged a suicide attack since 2000. If the attacks were motivated simply by fundamentalism, Pape points out, we’d have seen a lot more Hezbollah martyrs in the last decade. Plus, some of the Hezbollah attackers were Christian.

So what can Pape’s analysis tell us about U. S. strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan?

In Iraq, suicide attacks declined after 2007. Pape attributes the drop to the fact that the U.S. government paid local Sunni tribes in Anbar Province “not to kill us.” The strategy worked, he says, because the community felt empowered to secure its own future. Pointing out that suicide bombing decreased by 85% in the same period that 100,000 U.S. troops went home, Pape concludes, “By withdrawing our troops, we produced stability.”

For Pape, the data clearly indicates that the United States needs a new way to protect its strategic interests in the Middle East.

His answer is “off-shore balancing,” a strategy that does not call for an unqualified U.S. withdrawal, but rather for a concentration of military power offshore, aircraft carriers and naval presence, combined with rapidly-deployable ground troops but without the establishment of permanent bases.

Pape’s strategy also calls for the U.S. to train and equip local troops for self-protection, as in Anbar. Pape thinks this strategy would be particularly successful in southern Afghanistan, which saw a rise in Pashtun suicide terrorism after the U.S. sent troops into the Pashtun region.

Following Pape’s presentation, there was a lively discussion. Some participants found Pape’s analysis too simplistic, pointing out that suicide terrorism could increase or decrease due to other factors. One participant argued that the decrease in suicide bombing in Israel since the 2005 Gaza withdrawal could be the result of better Israeli defense, rather than troop reductions. He also pointed out that Pape’s data does not take into account foiled attacks by suicide bombers.

Even Pape questioned the political likelihood of the United States returning to its Middle Eastern strategy of the 1970’s and 1980s, when it sought to influence the region through offshore military, political and economic power.

But Pape stands by the data and his basic conclusion about the root cause of suicide terrorism. In its simplest formulation, his message is: “They’re coming over here because we’re going over there.”

Participants agreed that success in both areas is of critical importance to all three parties and the international community as a whole. But participants also pointed to lingering distrust among their countries and differences in perceptions and expectations. They stressed  the need for these three parties to seek greater clarity and transparency in order to build up the mutual strategic trust necessary for collaborative success.

These discussions were part of a two-day meeting on November 1-2, 2010, co-hosted by the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS) and EWI.  Nearly 40 experts attended, including representatives from the Chinese and U.S. governments, the Policy Planning Unit in the NATO General Secretary’s office, think tanks, universities, and the private sector.

Specific recommendations in the areas of Afghanistan security and climate change talks are summarized below.

Coordinating approaches in Afghanistan and the regional impact of the security situation

Discussion on Afghanistan focused on the basis of mistrust among the three parties and the variations in perceived intentions and expectations for action. Participants generally agreed that collaboration in Afghanistan between the United States and Europe was extensive through NATO. But expectations differed as to the extent of cooperation and contributions by China in rebuilding Afghanistan, and China also expressed concern that the planned military withdrawal by NATO in the next few years would destabilize the country and region.

Policy recommendations:

• China, the United States, and Europe should look for more opportunities to collaborate in providing technical assistance for agriculture, irrigation, education, health, energy, and water resources. Specifically, China should increase its agricultural development assistance to Afghanistan. This would help  develop an labor-intensive agriculture system that would create much needed employment for Afghanistan’s rapidly increasing population. It would also  provide technical assistance to  Afghanistan’s nut crops and juice concentrates, bringing them up to world standards and to introducing them into world markets.
• More in-depth conversations among the United States, NATO, and China should be held in order to clarify misunderstandings, particularly regarding the withdrawal intentions of the U.S. and NATO, and the extent of China’s collaboration with U.S. and NATO efforts.  So as to avoid any misunderstanding or misperceptions,  the United States should actively consult with and brief the countries bordering Afghanistan (China, India, Iran, and Pakistan) before and after publicly releasing reviews on the situation in Afghanistan.
• China, the United States, and Europe should bring together senior level Track 1.5 figures to discuss detailed, action-oriented outcomes pertaining to one specific challenge in Afghanistan.
• The United States should work to improve its public image in China and Pakistan in order to minimize possible barriers to government collaboration and contributions.

Bridging the trust deficit in multilateral climate change talks

In advance of the early December 2010 United Nations climate change negotiations to take place in Cancún, Mexico,  Trialogue21 meeting participants discussed ways to build trust among countries at different stages of development and with different perceptions regarding responsibility in addressing climate change. Discussion focused on issues that caused substantive disagreement during climate talks in Copenhagen and Tianjin, in January and October 2010 respectively. These discussion areas included establishment of a system for the measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) of emissions commitments; the transfer of clean energy technology; intellectual property rights; and climate financing.

Policy recommendations:

• The Cancún climate talks regarding the establishment of an MRV system should separate measuring and reporting from verification, and work to establish a system for measuring and reporting first.
• The climate talks in Cancún should establish an MRV system that provides incentives, including financial assistance and capacity-building, for developing countries who agree to participate in an MRV system. Developed countries should emphasize that the purpose of the MRV system would be to identify gaps in order to better provide assistance, rather than to point out problems that developing countries would be expected to fix on their own.
• Language and definitions established in the Bali Action Plan regarding MRV should be clarified and agreed upon by technical experts, and should be presented to policymakers in clear, comprehensible language.
• The international community could establish a patent pool for new carbon capture and storage technology to encourage technology transfer, like the patent created in the early stages of civil aviation development.
• To offset the media’s negative representation of negotiations, which results in poor public opinion, developed and developing countries should present the positive steps being taken to combat climate change publicly and collaboratively. For example, the United States and Europe could send fact-finding missions to China to learn from its domestic MRV system. Additionally, countries could initiate joint research, television shows, radio programs, and editorials to demonstrate cooperation in addressing climate change.
• Countries should work together to create a compendium of clean energy technology hampered by  significant barriers to technology transfer, in order to understand why the barriers exist and develop solutions.

The Fifth Trialogue21 meeting built on past meetings on regional security and clean and renewable energy, as well as events convened by EWI and CIIS this year, such as the Fourth U.S.-China High Level Security Dialogue.

Click below for interviews with Richard Barrett and Tom Parker:

Full Text from World Policy Institute

By Ryan French

In early October the Global War on Terror entered its tenth year, with no clear end in sight.  Though drone strikes have proved their worth by dividing terrorist leadership from their followers, especially in the AfPak region, there are discouraging setbacks, such as the recent near-misses by would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad and Umar Abdulmutallab, the infamous “underwear bomber” of Christmas Day 2009.  Unless new strategies are adopted that undermine the credibility of terrorist leaders with their followers, it is likely that the West will suffer a successful attack from what has shown itself to be a patient and determined foe.  As the Taliban have boasted, “NATO has all the watches, but we have all the time.”

On Tuesday, October 26, the World Policy Institute and EastWest Institute co-hosted Richard Barrett, coordinator of the Al Qaeda Taliban Monitoring Team for the UN, and Tom Parker of Amnesty International in the annual Ian Cuthbertson Memorial Lecture on improved strategies in the fight against radicalism. In Pakistan, Barret pointed out, public support for the current U.S. counter-terrorism strategy holds at a dismal 20 percent. Because terrorists capitalize on this sort of widespread opposition to gain sympathizers and recruits, the U.S. must supplement its counter-force tactics with innovative policy approaches. Barrett recommended that states consider education and messaging as methods to decrease the appeal of terrorism to discontented Muslims.  Although, as Barrett mentioned, 90 percent of the victims of Al Qaeda attacks are Muslim, Osama bin Laden is nevertheless able to rally supporters through his claims that the West is crusading against Islam. To be victorious in this war of competing narratives and ideas, governments should start by correcting the incomplete, inaccurate information held by the consumers of Islamist ideology.

Tom Parker, Policy Director for Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, and Human Rights at Amnesty International USA, echoed Barrett’s sentiment–the heart of the conflict against terrorism is an issue of competing ideas and narratives.  Muslims susceptible to radicalization must be educated in order to mitigate the information asymmetry that fosters terrorism.  To that end, the U.S. must engage in a war of information and publicize the human toll that Al Qaeda's attacks are taking on Muslims.  Al Qaeda relies on this information asymmetry to ensure the allegiance of its followers. If these adherents are exposed to new ways of thinking, particularly from credible religious leaders who emphasize the atrocities committed by terrorists upon Muslims and the Koran’s strict ban on suicide, there is potential to reverse or prevent the radicalization process.

By solving the problem of incomplete information that attracts young radicals to bloodshed, the seeds of a viable counter-narrative to the violent worldview of terrorist leaders can be sown. There are encouraging signs that such twisted, radicalized groupthink is already being challenged.  In December 2007, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's second-in-command, participated in an online question-and-answer session with an audience of jihadis. One of the questions asked was, how do you justify killing Muslim civilians?  Zawahiri went on to give a lengthy diatribe as to why Al Qaeda’s actions were permissible, but his defensive reaction to the question is proof of the frailty of Al Qaeda’s narrative.  The counter-narrative must be implanted by unbiased, credible figures in Islam, such as the respected cleric Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri who issued a fatwa in March against suicide terrorism, declaring it to be an unforgivable sin.  One of the strategies employed by Saudi Arabia has been to embed jihadist chatrooms with agents who offer an alternative “voice of reason” to the violent tactics discussed by the participants.

Forging a successful counter-narrative will achieve semantic infiltration, in which Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are pressured to acknowledge positive values in their public statements, such as concern for human rights. As Parker put it, this will “force [terrorists] into a value system that they can't adhere to,” further undermining their popular support.  Semantic infiltration appears to already be underway within Al Qaeda--earlier this month, Osama bin Laden released two recorded messages calling for humanitarian aid to victims of the recent flooding in Pakistan, as well as action to combat famine and climate change.  Surprisingly, there are no calls for violence in either videotape.  Indeed, the so-called Galula principle that successful counter-terrorism is 80 percent “hearts and minds” and only 20 percent conflict appears to hold sway, as the terrorists themselves seem to operate by this principle. Many groups have dubious charity wings that vie for the good graces of the public in a twisted effort to boost their political capital.

Ironically, the clearest example of the phenomenon of semantic infiltration, Barrett claimed, has been through Western use of the word, “jihad.”  As he said, In Islam, jihad is a highly nuanced concept, referring foremost to one's internal spiritual struggle.  Since 9/11, however, it has been seized by Western media outlets as a buzzword for Islamic “holy war,” thereby reinforcing the idea of a cultural conflict between Islam and the West.  This has served to increase cross-cultural antagonism, strengthening the hand of the violent narrative championed by Al Qaeda.

Without supplementing the current counter-force strategy against terrorism with innovative policies, the War on Terror is simply a perpetuation of the status quo.  In order to avert the distressingly real possibility of a “Forever War” against the proverbial hydra of terrorism, nations ought to view the conflict as one of competing ideas.  Until the violent narrative espoused by bin Laden and his disciples is viewed with universal disdain by Muslims, the risk of radicalization and terrorist attack will continue to loom large.  In the meantime, bin Laden will continue to dominate the political narrative by framing Al Qaeda and Islam as victims of Western belligerence:  “As you kill us, you will be killed... the initiator of the injustice is the true aggressor.”

Click here to read the report on World Policy Blog

The consultation brought together leading experts and diplomats to discuss how best to implement Action Point Five of the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference Final Document. Panelists and participants identified opportunities for cooperative action to promote “international stability, peace, and undiminished and increased security” and facilitate further progress towards disarmament. 

The consultation was the second in a series focused on implementing the action plan of the Final Document. On 9 September 2010, the EastWest Institute and Mission of Kazakhstan convened a high-level consultation to prioritize this ambitious action plan.  During that consultation, implementing Action Point Five emerged as the highest priority.

The October 22 session was chaired by Mr. Sergio Duarte, the United Nations High Representative for Disarmament. The panel of experts included:

• Her Excellency Byrganym Aitimova, Ambassador E. and P. and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan to the United Nations
• His Excellency Jim McLay, Ambassador E. and P. and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of New Zealand to the United Nations (speech)
• Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr., Former Special Representative of the President for Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Disarmament; Executive Chairman, Board of Directors, Lightbridge Corporation (speech)
• Ambassador Christian Strohal, Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations in Geneva (speech)

The panel addressed the following questions:

• What are the next steps to further reduce the global stockpile of nuclear weapons? How can ongoing disarmament efforts be designed to ensure, rather than undermine, strategic stability at lower nuclear numbers?
• How can nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states work together to decrease the role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines while balancing national security interests?
• What role can non-nuclear weapon states play in building transparency and promoting confidence-building measures in ongoing disarmament discussions?

All panelists agreed that the successfully concluded 2010 NPT Review Conference, and the unanimous adoption of the Final Document, created unprecedented opportunities to accelerate progress on nuclear disarmament. The panelists also broadly concurred that future progress on disarmament depends upon operationalizing the outcomes of the Final Document in the near future. 

Recommendations from the session include:

• Decreasing the operational readiness of nuclear weapon systems is a necessary step to facilitate future disarmament efforts. It would not only reduce the likelihood of an unauthorized or accidental launch, but also build confidence between nuclear weapon states and facilitate a reduced reliance on nuclear weapons in state and international security doctrines.
• Greater transparency must be achieved in future disarmament efforts and will help operationalize action point five. Nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states can work together to standardize reporting structures, and thus build the much needed confidence for significant reductions in nuclear arsenals. 
• Reducing numbers in an agreed and verifiable way is possible, but to achieve future progress on disarmament the United States must make progress now.  The U.S. Senate must ratify New START, and the U.S. and Russia must successfully negotiate a follow-on agreement that addresses tactical and conventional weapons.  After this process, and when the U.S. and Russian arsenals are decreased to a threshold where multilateral discussions can begin, negotiations can start that involve all nuclear weapon states.
• Recent successes in the international agenda towards disarmament and nonproliferation have created the momentum necessary to delegitimize nuclear weapons and decrease their role in state and internationals security doctrines. Nuclear weapons have no inherent military role; rather, it is their political saliency that is important.  The political saliency of nuclear weapons must be reevaluated and both non-nuclear weapon states and civil society have an important role to play in delegitimizing nuclear weapons.
• All non-nuclear weapon states should sign the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including the additional protocols. This requires full transparency of all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle. A multilateral framework to monitor the fuel cycle would help ensure the comprehensive implementation of Article IV of the NPT Treaty.
• Maintaining strategic stability in a post-nuclear weapons-free world must be addressed as disarmament progress is made. How will strategic stability be maintained as significant reductions are made, nuclear weapons are delegitimized, and new security threats emerge? Discussions on disarmament, nonproliferation, and maintaining strategic stability should be held in tandem.

In May 2010 the signatories of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty unanimously adopted the Final Document of the 2010 NPT Review Conference. The document outlines a 64-point action plan on nuclear disarmament that includes concrete steps towards a nuclear weapons-free world.

On October 12, 2010, the Board of Directors of the EastWest Institute honored Her Highness Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak with the Values Based Leadership Award, which was presented by Margot Perot and received by Her Highness’s son and the minister of foreign affairs, H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed.

In honoring Her Highness with the award, EWI sought to draw attention to her leadership record, particularly her promotion of the cause of women in the United Arab Emirates.

In 1973, Sheikha Fatima established the first women’s organization in the UAE: the Abu Dhabi Society for the Awakening of Women. To counter a more than 75 per cent illiteracy rate in the UAE, she launched a nationwide campaign for the education of young girls.

In 1975, Sheikha Fatima helped found the UAE Women’s Federation to empower women, promote education and eliminate illiteracy among adult women. Sheikha Fatima campaigned for the women of the UAE to work in media and become members of the country’s parliamentary assembly, the Federal National Council (FNC). The current FNC includes nine women among its 40 members.

In his keynote speech presenting the award, EastWest Institute Co-Chairman Francis Finlay declared: “Her Highness’ continuous inspiration, guidance, commitment, and leadership form a tribute to all women and men of the region and indeed serve as a beacon to all humanity.  The EastWest Institute family is deeply honored to present Her Highness with the EastWest Institute Values-based Leadership Award.”

Fatima Awarded EWI’s Leadership Award, Khaleej Times, October 12, 2010

Fatima awarded EWI's Values Based Leadership Award, UAE Interact, October 13, 2010