Policy Analysis

Upon returning from the latest Washington Institute Study Tour to the Middle East, senior fellow Soner Cagaptay discussed his findings and impressions at a special Institute Policy Forum. The following is his own summary of his remarks at the forum. Senior fellow David Makovsky addressed the forum as well, discussing

A version of this article appeared in German in Financial Times Deutschland under the title, "Die Uhr Tickt." The latest U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear intentions and capabilities has been the subject of much analysis, most of which has been off point. The new estimate opens with

A look at how the State and Defense Departments can coordinate their efforts to maximize the efficacy of U.S. counterterrorism policy.

Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qaddafi spent five days in France last week meeting with senior officials and signing billions of dollars' worth of business deals. The trip -- Mr. Qaddafi's first to France since 1973 -- marked the full normalization of European relations with the longtime pariah state. It also

On December 13, 2007, Neil Crompton, Hans-Peter Hinrichsen, and Nicholas Roche addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. Mr. Crompton is a political counselor at the British embassy who served until recently as Iran coordinator and head of the Iraq Policy Unit at the British Foreign Office. Dr. Hinrichsen

On December 17, a donor conference will convene in Paris with the goal of bolstering Palestinian governance in the West Bank -- the first such meeting since the 2006 Stockholm conference. Current Middle East envoy Tony Blair has expressed optimism that the international community will support President Mahmoud Abbas and

During last month's elections in Jordan, the Islamists suffered an unprecedented defeat. Previously, the Islamic Action Front (IAF) -- Jordan's largest political party -- controlled an impressive bloc of 17 of 110 seats. But the IAF ran only twenty-two candidates in the latest contest and won just six seats. This

The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran presents an interesting paradox: Though almost certainly the product of rigorous assessment and questioning, it may actually leave us less secure over time. How can such an improved product of spycraft have such a negative effect? It can when it frames the issue mistakenly

On December 4, 2007, Chuck Freilich and Geoffrey Kemp addressed a Washington Institute Policy Forum marking the release of Mr. Freilich's new Institute paper Speaking about the Unspeakable: U.S.-Israeli Dialogue on Iran's Nuclear Program. The author, the Institute's 2007 Ira Weiner fellow, teaches at Tel Aviv and Harvard Universities; previously

Some analysts are arguing that because last week's National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran halted its covert nuclear program in 2003, sanctions against Iran are no longer necessary. In fact, the opposite conclusion could be drawn from the report, which suggests that Iran is vulnerable to outside pressure on the

Why worry about Iran? Because the new U.S. intelligence report says Iran is making great progress at its huge fuel-cycle factories in producing enriched uranium, which is the fissile material at the core of a nuclear bomb. The report says Iran will have enough enriched uranium for a bomb sometime

On November 15, 2007, The Washington Institute held a Policy Forum with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Judith Miller and Ruth Wedgwood, the Edward B. Burling professor of international law and diplomacy and director of the International Law and Organizations Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The following

On December 3-4, Arab leaders representing Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Oman met in the Qatari capital, Doha, for their annual Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) summit, which for the first time was attended by an Iranian president. In November, the UAE set a precedent

On November 27, 2007, Jeffrey Feltman, Tony Badran, and David Schenker addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. Mr. Feltman has been the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon since July 2004. Mr. Badran is a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, specializing in Syrian and Lebanese politics. He

This week, the U.S. intelligence community released to Capitol Hill the unclassified key judgments of its latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear intentions and capabilities. The new estimate opens with the startling judgment that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003, which is sure

The Annapolis meeting was an impressive event. It brought nearly fifty nations together ostensibly in support of Arab-Israeli peace. While the Syrians came to emphasize their agenda on the Golan Heights, the other Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, came in response to an American invitation to resume the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations

In mid-November, the Council of Europe -- the author of last summer's highly critical report on alleged US secret prisons in Europe -- issued its latest assessment of global counterterrorism efforts. This time, the council took aim at the terrorist lists maintained by the UN and the EU, charging that

The United States and Israel have long shared a "special relationship," but significant obstacles may exist to a substantive and comprehensive bilateral dialogue on issues related to the Iranian nuclear threat. On particularly sensitive issues, sovereign nations are loath to discuss openly their intentions and capabilities, even with their closest

The just-released National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities," is about weaponization, not the enrichment and fuel cycle issues that have been the focus of multiple UN Security Council and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board resolutions regarding Iran's nuclear program. The NIE only suggests that Tehran has

Despite the longstanding and ever-evolving "special relationship" between the United States and Israel, the two allies do not appear to have engaged in substantive discussions on key facets of their most pressing mutual concern, the Iranian nuclear threat. Specifically, there has been little if any dialogue on the possibility of