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Abstract:

This paper discusses Foreign Policy Failures. More in particular it assesses the impact of the Western military interventions, in the 21st century, on conflict and sustainable peace building in the MENA. The first part highlights four rules of thumb for researching security and peace. The second part zooms in on situations in which well intentioned interventions (at least in most cases) cause unexpected problems or negative or harmful side effects . The third part defines foreign policy failures and identifies its causes, and the fourth part presents conflict and peace impact assessment tools, that could be used to point out these negative consequences before, during and after interventions. At the end there will be time for discussion and comments