Joseph Braude
Joseph Braude is the author of "The New Iraq: Rebuilding the Country for Its People, the Middle East, and the World" which was released in March 2003[www.newiraq.org], and a weekly columnist for The New Republic on Middle Eastern politics, culture, and media. [www.newiraq.org] Fluent in Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew, he has lived and worked in Tehran, Dubai, and Egypt and spent extensive time in most Middle Eastern capitals. He studied Near Eastern languages at Yale and Arabic and Islamic history at Princeton.
From 2000-2003, he served as Senior Middle East Analyst for Pyramid Research, a global consulting firm specializing in the telecommunications industry. [4] Al Jazeera's report states that Braude "worked at an Islamic archive in the United Arab Emirates, where he helped recover and preserve antique Arabic manuscripts. He has also been a federal consultant on "[...] activities."
Braude’s book, The New Iraq, (Basic Books, 2003), explores the economic, social, and political legacy of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and envisions the country’s rejuvenation as part of an international state-building effort. According to Ernest May, a professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, "Combining sensitive description of centuries of history with vivid eyewitness reports on the present, Braude offers a fascinating, horrifying, yet hopeful description of Iraq."
The Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Ahram accorded the book nine columns' space in a critical but respectful two-part review, meticulously parsing Braude's formulations chapter by chapter. Among other aspects of the book's content, it predicts an Iraqi insurgency, calls for a reengineering of the Iraqi army from within rather than its dissolution, and flags Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani as a crucial player in Iraq's political future. The book was published prior to the April 2003 American invasion of Iraq. While promoting the book, Braude interviewed live in Arabic on Al-Jazeera and in English on CNN, MSNBC, NBC’s Today Show, and CBS’s The Early Show.
In June 2003, Braude returned to the United States from a visit to Baghdad with three cylinder seals which were the property of the Iraqi museum. Federal prosecutors accused him of smuggling the items, which he neither declared on his Customs form nor volunteered to Customs agents. Though an Ashcroft-era Justice Department press release claimed that the airport interrogation of Braude had been a "routine Customs investigation," subsequent cross-examination of a Customs agent at trial elicited the fact that Braude had been targeted for unspecified reasons.
Of the prosecution, Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, a noted civil libertarian who earlier in his career had defended Pentagon Papers whistle blower Daniel Ellsberg, told the New York Times, "I just got the sense that this kid was being railroaded. Why they’re prosecuting it like a major felony seems like serious overkill to me." [6] Braude fought the charges for 13 months but ultimately entered a plea of guilty in August 2004, after a legal ruling that Braude's motivation in recovering and importing the cylinder seals were irrelevant to the legal statute. At sentencing in a New York Federal court, he told Judge Allyne B. Ross, "I acquired the three cylinder seals in Baghdad’s black market for the sole purpose of safeguarding them, authenticating them, and delivering them directly to American officials whom I knew and who were specifically tasked with Iraq policy." Ross stated: "This is an exceptional case in which a departure is warranted … As to his motivation in committing the offense, the government has never contended that defendant sought pecuniary gain from his conduct, nor is there any suggestion that he ever procured similar items in the past or sought to do so."
Braude was spared prison time, and sentenced to six months’ home confinement – which commenced in December 2004 and ended in May 2005.
Since November 2004, Braude has contributed 40 columns to The New Republic on the range of Middle East policy and security issues that dominate the national interest. The articles, which are eclectic, include criticism of the Bush Administration's execution of the Iraq war and subsequent policies. A 4000-word essay of his on how Arab audiences respond to Hollywood films appeared as the cover story in the November 20, 2005 issue of The Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine.