Brookings Today, 8/12/14

A roundup of some of the content published today by Brookings.

• How well did welfare programs respond during the Great Recession? Ron Haskins, Vicky Albert, and Kimberly Howard discuss how the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program responded to increased unemployment during the Great Recession.

• Long-term strategy in Iraq. Michael O’Hanlon suggests that U.S. strategy in Iraq will require more than air strikes.

• Who owns the rights to a monkey’s selfie? asks Stuart Brotman as he explores the dispute between a nature photographer and the Wikimedia Foundation.

• Preparing for the next great disaster. Michael O’Hanlon, Ian Livingston, and Miranda Melcher gauge U.S. capability to respond to the next great natural disaster.

• The failure of the American media in understanding emerging Africa. Mwangi Kimenyi reports on the success of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit despite the limited media coverage of the event.

• Carbon tax or cap-and-trade? Charles Frank explains why a carbon tax and cap-and-trade are opposite sides of the same coin.

• Assessing Rouhani’s first year. Suzanne Maloney discusses Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s first year in office and suggests that he will need a new strategy to advance his agenda.

Elina Saxena contributed to this post.