Arab Reform Bulletin: New Format, New Release

After two years as a monthly publication, the Arab Reform Bulletin, a product of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has altered its format and will now issue one or two articles per week. Its two most recent releases focus on the Muslim Brotherhood’s newly elected leadership and how Iraq’s forthcoming elections have exposed gaps in U.S. policy.

In trying to analyze the significance of a reconfigured Brotherhood, Husam Tammam writes that Mohammed Badie’s ascension to Chairman empowered a conservative MB faction that is “more interested in working from within to cultivate a strong, disciplined movement than in engaging with other political forces and intellectual currents in Egyptian society.” However, the Brotherhood has long been known for its “steadiness and pragmatism,” and Tammam is convinced that “the group’s major strategic choices—renouncing violence as a tool, participating in politics, and adopting a gradualist approach—are unlikely to shift suddenly.”

Brian Katulis worries that the U.S. has yet to articulate a “strategy for the broader Middle East,” and, more precisely, how Iraq fits into this regional approach. Iran’s international belligerence only heightens Iraq’s geopolitical importance, and Katulis wants the Obama administration to “more clearly define how it sees the bilateral relationship with Iraq fitting into a larger plan to deescalate tensions and foster stability in the broader Gulf region.”