Policy Analysis

David Makovsky, an expert on Israeli politics, says in the aftermath of the month-long Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, questions are being raised about the viability of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. “There are going to be a lot of questions on whether the Olmert government can survive,” Makovsky says

Sectarian violence has now surpassed the insurgency as the main security challenge in Iraq. Quelling this violence—which threatens to derail that country’s troubled political transition, devastate the Iraqi people, inflict lasting harm on the country’s social fabric and economy, erode flagging U.S. domestic support for the war effort, and heighten

While U.S. and coalition forces—and increasingly the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF)—struggle to defeat the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, they are also dealing with a range of armed groups that complicate the security scenario. Militias and ad hoc units with different levels of government sanction are growing in strength, and the

Read the Turkish Daily News editorial response to this article. Something is changing in the Turks' sense of who they are. You hear it from cab drivers or columnists, old friends and fresh acquaintances. For a long time, the Turks put their Turkish identity first, snubbing their Muslim neighborhood. Now

Despite characterizations of last week’s thwarted attempt to blow up ten transatlantic flights as “homegrown,” Pakistan, rather than the United Kingdom, has emerged as the epicenter of planning. The incident is part of a wider pattern—the past six weeks alone have revealed that several other aspiring and successful militants had

In 1993 and 1996 I helped broker understandings that brought conflicts between Hezbollah and Israel to an end. Both times Hezbollah instigated warfare with Katyusha rocket fire into Israel and Israel retaliated, determined to damage Hezbollah’s capacity for making war and to demonstrate to the Lebanese the cost of Hezbollah’s

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is a man who likes flags. At the start of the war, he appeared on his organization’s al-Manar television station with a Hezbollah flag behind him. Then that was replaced by a Lebanese flag. Lately, he has placed both flags at his side. There’s been one

Recent developments related to the war in Lebanon—a warning from Damascus that Israeli forces in Lebanon should keep away from the Syrian border, the placement of Syrian forces on a heightened state of alert, the explosion of a crude improvised explosive device (IED) on the Syrian side of the Golan

Last week, even before the carnage in Qana, a parade of pundits, lawmakers, and former policymakers started calling for Washington to reengage in a dialogue with Damascus. President Carter, Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, among others, argued that the Bush administration should talk

Damascus, Syria It is hardly surprising that when discussing the Lebanon crisis, President Bush tends to couple Syria's role with Iran's. After all, Damascus and Tehran have spent the better part of the last year deepening their ties, culminating in a June military cooperation agreement. But the United States may

Earlier this week, Israel began its long-anticipated ground offensive in Lebanon intended to degrade Hizballah's military apparatus, pacify Israel's northern border with Lebanon, and lay the foundation for what is now frequently referred to as a "sustainable ceasefire." Reaching a consensus on the precise meaning of the term "sustainable" will

As diplomacy to end hostilities between Israel and Lebanon intensifies at the United Nations, with a first resolution passed perhaps on Monday, conceptual gaps between the parties remain. The differences range from substantive to procedural. France has been at the center of diplomacy surrounding the passage of a UN Security

As Lebanon plunges deeper into ruin and chaos as a result of Hizballah’s “gang war” tactics against Israel’s expanded military campaign to degrade the power of the Islamist party, Hizballah, Syria, and its allies in Lebanon are devising plans to subvert an international agreement on a multinational force to guard

The conflict in the Middle East is about much more than Israel and Hezbollah, or even Hezbollah's Syrian and Iranian sponsors. What is at stake are the very rules of war that underpin the entire international order. Sadly, judging from how most of the world has responded to Israel's military

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared that success in handing Hezbollah a major setback would help Israel as it seeks to withdraw from most of the settlements in the West Bank. This may seem odd to some looking for a relationship between how fighting Hezbollah could minimize conflict

Israeli footage of the Hezbollah katushya rocket launcher entering the parking structure of the residential apartment building in Qana, Lebanon, was compelling if not indisputable. But regardless of whether Israel convinces the international community that Hezbollah was using innocent civilians to shelter rocket launchers, the tragic death of more than

On August 1, 2006, the Honorable Shimon Peres addressed the Washington Institute’s Special Policy Forum to discuss Israel’s political and military strategy in its war against Hizballah. Shimon Peres is the deputy prime minister of Israel and a member of Knesset from the Kadima Party. A former prime minister, defense

With the ongoing clashes between Israel and Hizballah raging without respite and Lebanon sustaining significant human and material losses, the sociopolitical scene in Beirut is bursting with both centrifugal and centripetal forces. While these forces threaten the country with implosion, they are sparking a national debate on Lebanese national identity

On July 25, 2006, Robert Satloff and David Pollock addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. Dr. Satloff is the executive director of The Washington Institute and the author most recently of the Institute monograph Assessing What Arabs Do, Not What They Say: A New Approach to Understanding Arab Anti-Americanism

For years, we were told that the “root cause” of the Middle East’s problems was the Israeli occupation of Arab lands—the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and southern Lebanon. Peace would come to the Middle East, according to this view, only when Israel finally