New Year = New Problems

Wow that sounded WAAAAY more cynical than I wanted it to. Anyways, happy New Years everyone! I hope you had an awesome holiday with all the presents, turkey, gravy, and cake that you could ever want or handle. Now its time for more MUN!

The title of this post is much more fitting for this nice little article I found earlier. Its a nice little cynical piece for you to chew on that also goes into some of the possible future complexities of the Arab Spring. Don't spend too much time worrying about any economic issues or complications. You are the Security Council, you just need to have a peace settlement. Let the bean-counters in business and the finance department worry about the economic junk.

One thing you'll need to consider in your peace settlements is the role of domestic authorities. What role should the authoritarian governments play in any possible transition or should a transition be made? What is to be done about the various militia and rebel groups? What role should Islamist or conservative religious groups play in the formation of new governments? Your countries will have specific answers to these questions and you'll have to find some sort of compromise. To add some more cynicism, remember that your countries will also have their own agendas in the Middle East and therefore will have different interests and motivations than others.

Here is a nice article from the US Institute of Peace on the Arab Spring and peace in the Middle East. It won't give too much country-specific information for most of you but talks about how the mass protests might complicate current peace efforts.

Until next time, have an excellent New Years! Look for more frequent postings in 2012!

"To all the revolutionaries fighting to throw off the yoke of tyranny around the world: look at British democracy. Is that what you want?" -- Andy Zaltzman

Your chair with the cool hair who had the time to come up with this rhyme, Josh