Weekend Reading

I have to think of a clever title for this Friday afternoon links collection that I've been calling "Weekend Reading." Meanwhile, here's the latest installment. And since I've had comments about some of the linked reports, I'll re-emphasize that I'm neither endorsing their arguments nor, in many cases, have I even read much of them beyond the summaries. I'm just keeping my readers informed of what the think tank world is up to.

• In-House business first. I've already mentioned MEI's latest Viewpoints collection on the 30th anniversaries of major events of 1979, but I'll link to it again anyway. Full text in PDF here. Also, a couple of other additions to our web publication series: Alex Vatanka on "Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani's Public Greeting." It first appeared in Jane's Intelligence Weekly. Alex, an Adjunct Scholar at MEI, is an Editor at Jane's. Also up is a commentary that originally appeared in The New York Times by Hossein Askari and Trita Parsi, "Throwing Ahmadinejad a Lifeline." Trita is also one of our adjuncts.
  

• Steven A. Cook at the Council on Foreign Relations has a "Contingency Planning Memorandum" on the prospects of instability in Egypt due to the anticipated transition of power; the cover material and summary is here and the full report, "Political Instability in Egypt" in PDF is here. Obviously tied to the Mubarak visit. And related: a post-visit post by Cook at the Middle East Strategy at Harvard blog including an extended comment by Michele Dunne.
  

• The Brookings Institution's Doha Center (everyone seems to have one these days) has produced a "Policy Briefing" called "Pakistan's Madrassas: The Need for Internal Reform and the Role of International Assistance."

• From Carnegie's Middle East Center, Paul Salem comments on "Fatah Congress Strengthens Abu Mazen and Rejuvenates the Movement."