The fortunes of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood may be shifting after three difficult years that saw the group's worst electoral result in history, reports of diminished influence, and sustained government repression. After hitting an unprecedented low, the relationship between the Jordanian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition grouping, has improved recently. This is the opposite of what many observers, including this author, expected. Hammam Sa'id, known as a hardliner, was elected General Guide of the organization in May 2008, leading many to predict heightened confrontation between regime and opposition. Analysts Matthew Levitt and David Schenker wrote, for instance, that the leadership change suggested the Brotherhood "can no longer be considered ‘loyal' to the kingdom." During Sa'id's tenure, however, events have moved in an unexpected direction. Since being elected, he has toned down his abrasive rhetoric, emphasized domestic priorities, and made an effort to reach understandings with the government of Prime Minister Nader al-Dahabi on key issues of contention.

The question of the Palestinian Resistance Movement (Hamas) is one area where Islamists and the regime have moved closer to each other. After nine years of severed ties, Jordan has opened a dialogue with Hamas, recognizing the group's growing influence and its strong position in Gaza. With its close ties to Hamas leaders, the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), played a critical role in facilitating the resumption of contacts.  

Moreover, Jordan's King Abdullah-known as one of the region's most pro-Western rulers-has attempted to strengthen ties to other U.S. adversaries, including Iran and Russia. He has met with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev three times in the last eight months, and their discussions have increasingly revolved around military assistance and cooperation, including joint production of multi-caliber grenade launchers. Such moves have given Islamists hope that Jordan is beginning to shake off Washington's tight embrace.  

For their part, Islamists are drawing a degree of optimism from their improved relations with the regime. Even IAF Secretary-General Zaki Bani Irsheid, one of the government's fiercest detractors, said in a private conversation in August that Jordan may be entering a "new political phase." Coinciding with the improved ties between Islamists and the regime, relations between internal Brotherhood/IAF factions have also improved after nine months of crippling internal divisions that had threatened to tear the movement apart. In early August, so-called hawks and doves reached an agreement that left both sides content, at least temporarily. The agreement reflects what had been a difficult and sustained round of internal negotiations over a variety of contentious issues, including Bani Irsheid's pending trial by an internal IAF court for allegedly sabotaging his own party's prospects in the 2007 parliamentary elections. This agreement might have postponed further infighting, however, rather than ended it; there are still factions within the Brotherhood that hold substantially different visions on how to proceed in what remains a challenging economic and political environment.  

It is unclear what the Jordanian regime's efforts at strategic repositioning-taking into account a perceived decline in U.S. influence in the region-bode for further political opening and reform. Over the last three years, the Jordanian government interpreted U.S. silence on reform as a green light to clamp down aggressively on Islamists. However, if it continues to see a need to reach out to Hamas, the regime will    need to expand political space for the Islamist opposition and maintain a mutually beneficial working relationship with it.  

Of course, there have been bouts of optimism before, and they have been misplaced. Each time the regime has reached out to the Brotherhood, as it did in advance of the November 2007 elections, it has quickly reversed course and resumed anti-Islamist policies. Islamists are unlikely to be fooled again. Despite the optimism expressed by Bani Irsheid and others, most Islamists see this as yet another round of tactical maneuvering. The Jordanian regime is not necessarily acting in good faith; it is acting in its own self-interest. So too is the Islamist opposition.

Professor Walter P. Falcon, Deputy Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE), former director of FSI, and Helen Farnsworth Professor of International Agricultural Policy, Emeritus has been recognized with an honorary degree from McGill University for his research aimed at reducing world hunger and enhancing global food security.

Professor Falcon's expertise is in food policy, commodity markets, trade policies, and regional development. Professor Falcon's current research focuses on agricultural decision-making in Indonesia and Mexico, biotechnology, climate change, and biofuels.

From 1972 to 1991, Professor Falcon served as professor of economics and director of Stanford University's Food Research Institute, after which he directed the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies until 1998. From 1998 to 2007 he co-directed the Center for Environmental Science and Policy. At Stanford he has also served as senior associate dean for the social sciences, a member of the academic senate, and twice a member of the University's Advisory Board.

Professor Falcon has also consulted with numerous international organizations, been a trustee of Winrock International, and was chairman of the board of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). From 1978 to 1980, he was a member of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger and in 1990 was named a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association. From 1996-2001 he served as chairman of the board of the International Corn and Wheat Institute (CIMMYT), and from 2001-07 served on the board of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

Falcon was cited as the outstanding 1958 graduate of Iowa State University in 1989 and in 1992 was awarded the prestigious Bintang Jasa Utama medal of merit by the government of Indonesia for twenty-five years of assistance to that country's development effort.

CDDRL Director Larry Diamond engaged in a far-reaching conversation at FSI with Jason Yuan, Taiwan's Representative to the United States, about the dynamic relationship among Taiwan, the United States, and China. Finding fertile ground for debate, the two examined democracy in Taiwan, cross-strait relations, Taiwan's economy, and prospects for the development of democracy on the mainland.

[See video interview with Chris Field and David Lobell here].

Biofuels such as ethanol offer an alternative to petroleum for powering our cars, but growing energy crops to produce them can compete with food crops for farmland, and clearing forests to expand farmland will aggravate the climate change problem. How can we maximize our "miles per acre" from biomass?

Researchers writing in the May 7, 2009, edition of the journal Science say the best bet is to convert the biomass to electricity rather than ethanol. They calculate that, compared to ethanol used for internal combustion engines, bioelectricity used for battery-powered vehicles would deliver an average of 80 percent more miles of transportation per acre of crops, while also providing double the greenhouse gas offsets to mitigate climate change.
 
"It's a relatively obvious question once you ask it, but nobody had really asked it before," said study co-author Christopher B. Field, director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution. "The kinds of motivations that have driven people to think about developing ethanol as a vehicle fuel have been somewhat different from those that have been motivating people to think about battery electric vehicles, but the overlap is in the area of maximizing efficiency and minimizing adverse impacts on climate."
 
Field, who is also a professor of biology at Stanford University and a senior fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment, is part of a research team that includes lead author Elliott Campbell of the University of California-Merced and David Lobell of Stanford's Program on Food Security and the Environment.