Religion

In The Next Front, co-authors Senator Christopher Bond  and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lewis M. Simons argue that the Obama administration can reverse the devastating effects of failed policies throughout the Islamic community in Southeast Asia by adopting a new "smart power" approach, one that combines the "soft" tools of diplomatic, economic and personal outreach with the fallback "hard" option of military force.  By so doing, the United States can begin to reverse the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in a region with more Muslims than in the entire Middle East.

As Bosnia and Herzegovina’s longtime tradition of religious coexistence is disappearing, USIP examines how education for new generations can improve multiethnic understanding in the postwar country.

USIP's Daniel Brumberg joined a panel of guest speakers, including Congressman Keith Ellison, for a lively discussion of USIP's new volume "Conflict, Identity, and Reform in the Muslim World."

 H.E. Ihsanoglu discussed OIC projects contributing to peacemaking and assessed the prospects of advancing U.S. - Islamic relations.

USIP's Maria Jessop-Mandel writes about the Institute's recent human rights workshop, "Putting Human Rights Values into Action," for Iraqi professors held in Beirut, Lebanon. The program explored three human rights-related themes specific to the Iraqi context -- children’s rights, women's equality and academic freedom -- and ways these professors could more effectively teach human rights in their classrooms, and ultimately learn from each other's experiences.

Education plays a critical role in preparing communities for change and has made important contributions to post-conflict reconciliation in numerous war-torn societies, yet education issues have largely been excluded from past efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  A new USIP report argues why an education track should be included in the negotiations phase and in the text of an agreement itself, and puts forward practical recommendations on how Israelis and Palestinians – and the international community – can move forward with a successful peace process that incorporates education.

In Afghanistan's poppy-rich south and southwest, a raging insurgency intersects a thriving opium trade. A new USIP report, How Opium Profits the Taliban, examines who are the main beneficiaries of the opium trade, how traffickers influence the Taliban insurgency as well as the politics of the region, and considers the extent to which narcotics are changing the nature of the insurgency itself.

Based on a recent USIP report "Hamas: Ideological Rigidity, Political Flexibility" by Paul Scham and Osama abu-Irshaid, this discussion will explore how the international community can detect and take advantage of any willingness by Hamas to compromise, without making ourselves vulnerable to manipulation. How should we interpret this movement, what is the role of Shari'a law in Hama's political behavior and what are the policy implications of the report?