WASHINGTON—With the Iraq war essentially over, United States priorities are quickly shifting to securing the peace and setting Iraq on the path to democracy. Concerns about immediate needs have been exacerbated by the inability of coalition forces to control widespread looting and lawlessness in Baghdad and elsewhere, reported shortages of potable water in some areas, and the failure to date of coalition forces to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In launching an effort that will be mu...

WASHINGTON—On April 8, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair affirmed, "The United Nations has a vital role to play in the reconstruction of Iraq." Just the day before, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan noted, "There are lots of areas where the United Nations can play a role, but above all the UN involvement does bring legitimacy which is necessary, necessary for the country, for the region and for the peoples around the world." To assess the various roles that the United Nation...

WASHINGTON--The U.S. Institute of Peace mourns the passing of Dr. Masipula Sithole, of Harare, Zimbabwe, a senior fellow at the Institute during 2002-2003. Sithole, who was 56, died on April 3 in Fairfax, Virginia, after suffering a massive stroke. His life was one of deep commitment to the people of Zimbabwe. Masipula Sithole was one of Africa's most respected scholars. He was a professor of political science at the University of Zimbabwe and founding director of the Mass Public Opinion Ins...

WASHINGTON--Kirkuk, the northern Iraq city and surrounding province that produces a large share of Iraq's oil, is a potential hot spot of interethnic tension in the aftermath of the Iraq war. Claimed historically by both Kurds (at one time a majority in the province) and Turkmen (at one time a majority in the city), Kirkuk has seen the displacement of much of its Kurdish, Turkmen, and Christian population by the Saddam Hussein regime, which sought to "Arabize" it by importing over 250,000 mos...

WASHINGTON--Journalists and others seeking to understand the strange machinations of Kim Jong Il and the North Korean regime would do well to read Negotiating on the Edge: North Korean Negotiating Behavior by Scott Snyder, published in 1999 by the U.S. Institute of Peace Press. Scott Snyder, a former program officer with the Institute, now with the Asia Foundation in Seoul, explains in the book that the North Koreans' disturbing penchant for confrontation, threats and violence should not be...

WASHINGTON—The United States Institute of Peace is pleased to welcome Tamara Cofman Wittes, who this week joined our Research and Studies Program as a Middle East specialist. Wittes comes to us from the Middle East Institute, where she was director of programs from June 2000 to December 2002. In that position, she developed and ran programs examining politics, culture and society in the region, from Morocco to Pakistan. A specialist on the Arab-Israeli peace process, Wittes has undertaken r...

WASHINGTON--"The cancer that has afflicted West Africa throughout the 1990s continues to spread. The Ivory Coast is just the most recent state to fall victim to violent instability in what now appears to be a civil war." With these sobering words Chester A. Crocker, chairman of the Board of Directors at the U.S. Institute of Peace, introduced the most recent development in the unfolding West African regional war at a December 9, 2002 Current Issues Briefing at the Institute of Peace titled, "...