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1. A Shaky Foundation: The Myth of Authoritarian Stability in the Middle East

Author:
Jon Hoffman
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
American foreign policy in the Middle East is based on a myth. For decades, policymakers have worked to prop up Middle Eastern autocracies out of the belief that they serve as the only bulwark against chaos and threats to American interests in the region. This approach gets things backward. Rather than being the solution to the region’s various problems, these actors are responsible for producing and exacerbating the greatest underlying problems in the region, and a blank check from Washington allows them to act with impunity both at home and abroad. Accordingly, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is in desperate need of an overhaul.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Authoritarianism, and Political stability
Political Geography:
Middle East

2. Economic Freedom and Mass Migration: Evidence from Israel

Author:
Benjamen Powell
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The economic case for free immigration is nearly identical to the case for free trade. They both rely on a greater division of labor based on comparative advantage to ensure that allowing the free movement of goods and services or the free movement of people results in greater global wealth. Estimates of the global gains that could be achieved by the global adoption of an open immigration policy are massive, ranging from 50 to 150 percent of world GDP (Clemens 2011). Even a migration of just 5 percent of the world’s poor to wealthier countries would boost world GDP by more than could be gained by completely eliminating all remaining trade barriers to goods, services, and capital flows (Clemens 2011).
Topic:
Economics and Immigration
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

3. Role of the IMF in the Global Financial Crisis

Author:
Miranda Xafa
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
More than two years on, the impact of the financial crisis that erupted in August 2007 is still being felt as the global economy emerges from the Great Recession. The crisis intensified dramatically after the bankruptcy of Lehman and the rescue of insurance giant AIG in September 2008, which narrowly avoided a near-simultaneous failure of multiple counterparties. The International Monetary Fund's early forecast of the severity of the resulting economic downturn (IMF 2008a) helped mobilize concerted official action to address quickly and forcefully these extraordinary economic and financial events by providing fiscal stimulus to sustain growth, as well as capital injections and guarantees to ease the credit crunch. Following the emergency summit of G20 leaders in Washington in November 2008, support packages for banks were put together in a hurry in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere to prevent the dis- orderly failure of systemically important institutions and to restore confidence in the financial system.
Topic:
Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States and Middle East

4. Learning the Right Lessons from Iraq

Author:
Harvey Sapolsky, Christopher Preble, and Benjamin Friedman
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Foreign policy experts and policy analysts are misreading the lessons of Iraq. The emerging conventional wisdom holds that success could have been achieved in Iraq with more troops, more cooperation among U.S. government agencies, and better counterinsurgency doctrine. To analysts who share these views, Iraq is not an example of what not to do but of how not to do it. Their policy proposals aim to reform the national security bureaucracy so that we will get it right the next time.
Topic:
International Relations and Oil
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

5. Learning the Right Lessons from Iraq

Author:
Benjamin H. Friedman, Harvey Sapolsky, and Christopher Preble
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Foreign policy experts and policy analysts are misreading the lessons of Iraq. The emerging conventional wisdom holds that success could have been achieved in Iraq with more troops, more cooperation among U.S. government agencies, and better counterinsurgency doctrine. To analysts who share these views, Iraq is not an example of what not to do but of how not to do it. Their policy proposals aim to reform the national security bureaucracy so that we will get it right the next time.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

6. Organ Sales and Moral Travails: Lessons from the Living Kidney Vendor Program in Iran

Author:
Benjamin E. Hippen
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Kidney transplantation in the United States is burdened by a terrible policy failure. The cost of this failure will be paid in the currency of years of human lives unnecessarily lost, as well as a massive increase in federal expenditures over the next decade and beyond. The number of patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in the United States has grown, but the supply of kidneys—for the preferred treatment for ESRD, kidney transplantation— has not kept pace with the demand. Unfortunately, the issue is not simply one of supply and demand: in the United States the supply of kidneys for transplantation is kept artificially low by a prohibition on the sale of human organs.
Topic:
Health, Human Welfare, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, and Middle East

7. Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America's Soul

Author:
Juan Carlos Hidalgo
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
For most of this decade, Latin America has been neglected by the developed world. At least that is a recurring grievance from leaders and specialists in the region. The attention of rich countries has switched to terrorism in the Middle East and poverty in Africa, while pressing needs and conflicts remain unattended in Latin America.
Topic:
Terrorism
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, and Latin America

8. Escaping the Trap: Why the United States Must Leave Iraq

Author:
Ted Galen Carpenter
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The U.S. military occupation of Iraq has now lasted longer than U.S. involvement in World War II. Yet there is no end in sight to the mission. Staying in Iraq is a fatally flawed policy that has already cost more than 3,000 American lives and consumed more than $350 billion. The security situation in that country grows increasingly chaotic and bloody as evidence mounts that Iraq has descended into a sectarian civil war between Sunnis and Shiites. Approximately 120 Iraqis per day are perishing in political violence. That bloodshed is occurring in a country of barely 26 million people. A comparable rate of carnage in the United States would produce more than 1,400 fatalities per day.
Topic:
Security and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, America, and Middle East

9. The Bottom Line on Iran: The Costs and Benefits of Preventive War versus Deterrence

Author:
Justin Logan
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
It appears increasingly likely that the Bush administration's diplomatic approach to Iran will fail to prevent Iran from going nuclear and that the United States will have to decide whether to use military force to attempt to delay Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability. Some analysts have already been promoting air strikes against Iran, and the Bush administration has pointed out repeatedly that the military option is “on the table.” This paper examines the options available to the United States in the face of a prospective final diplomatic collapse.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Economics, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, and Middle East

10. Iran's Nuclear Program: America's Policy Options

Author:
Ted Galen Carpenter
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Although it is possible that negotiations between the leading powers in the international community and Iran may produce a settlement to the vexing issue of Iran's nuclear program, it is more likely that those negotiations will fail. If that happens, U.S. policymakers face a set of highly imperfect options.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States, America, Iran, and Middle East