Policy Analysis

King Abdullah II's latest domestic reform initiative for Jordan -- the National Agenda Committee -- will soon release a series of major political recommendations. These proposals will provide the Jordanian government with a detailed framework to guide the reform process in coming years. Background The National Agenda initiative was launched

Empowering Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas and fellow moderates at this critical time may be in the interest of everyone who favors a return to peace negotiations, but Abbas himself faces immense challenges to his authority that make him unlikely to be able to implement significant changes in the

On September 13, 2005, Israeli deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs Silvan Shalom addressed The Washington Institute's Board of Trustees in New York. Following is the full text of his prepared remarks. Ladies and gentlemen, friends, I would like to thank Rob Satloff and The Washington Institute for

On September 12, the last departing Israeli forces closed the gates of Gaza behind them, followed by a salvo of Palestinian rockets aimed at southern Israel. In the unsettled aftermath of the Israeli disengagement from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank, only one camp seems clearly to know

A key issue in the runup to January's Palestinian parliamentary elections is whether the radical Islamist party Hamas will be allowed to participate and under what conditions. Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and foreign minister Silvan Shalom have insisted that the group disarm, disavow terror, and end its call for

The recent reports of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Iraq Survey Group, and the Presidential WMD Commission regarding intelligence and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq offer many useful insights into Iraq's weapons program and the challenges that the intelligence community faced in assessing them. But the reports offer

In concluding my book last year, I suggested that we might find the missing peace when Yasir Arafat passed from the scene and it became possible to get beyond the dysfunction he cultivated. Little did I suspect he would die before the end of 2004. Now he is gone. Palestinians

On September 17, the United Nations (UN) report on the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri is due to be handed to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan. It may be delayed by a few months, however, to allow the international community to insist that Syrian officials be questioned and

On September 7, Egyptians voted in their country's first multiparty presidential election. Though results are not yet final, preliminary tallies point to a victory for the incumbent president, Hosni Mubarak. Observers reported irregularities, and turnout did not seem to meet the ruling National Democratic Party's (NDP) expectations. More than half

Critics of the Bush administration's pro-democracy strategy in the Middle East have been pointing to this week's Egyptian election, which resulted in a landslide for Hosni Mubarak, as proof of a policy that's got little bark and even less bite. A policy with real teeth, they argue, would have demanded

Now that Israel has disengaged from the Gaza Strip and four settlements from the northern West Bank, the international community has a clear interest in doing all it can to see that the post-withdrawal security situation remains stable so that the exit from Gaza leads to further steps along the

The September 1 meeting in the Turkish city of Istanbul between Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalom and his Pakistani counterpart, Khurshid Kasuri, was historic. There have been no public official contacts between the two nations since Pakistan was founded in 1947 as a home for Muslims in the Indian subcontinent

Back in 2003, Senator Robert Byrd voiced a common view among liberals about reconstruction: that it would be expensive and that America would have to pay for it. "[B]efore the war," he said, "the president's policy advisers assured the American people that Iraq would largely be able to finance its

Israeli disengagement from Gaza and the northern West Bank settlements has left in its wake three important crises for the religious Zionist movement that spearheaded settlements in Israel. These crises involve the settlers' future relationships with the Israeli public, the Israeli state, and the political secular right. For settlers, these

When The Washington Institute was founded in 1985, the Middle East was a critical front in the Cold War, Ayatollah Khomeini was at the vanguard of the Islamic revolution, the Arab-Israeli peace process was stagnant, and America was still reeling from the ignominy of withdrawing its Marine contingent from Lebanon

Though armed insurgencies can last for a decade or more, they also can have decisive periods in which their paths are set, even if those paths do not become apparent for some time. Iraq appears to be entering just such a period of decision. Starting Conditions The process of political

After Israel's pullout from Gaza, the secretary general of Hamas, Khaled Mashal, declared that the withdrawal was an Israeli defeat and a victory for violence. Mr. Mashal made clear to reporters in Beirut that suicide bombings inside Israeli cities and mortars fired at Israeli towns were effective. He proclaimed, "The

Warnings by Sunni politicians of even greater violence if Sunni Arab concerns are not addressed in the draft Iraqi constitution raise the question: could the insurgency get worse? The answer can be found by examining the insurgency's demographic dimension. The Insurgency's Recruitment Base Sufficiently detailed demographic data exist to allow

If the US-Turkish relationship is the single most important unintended victim of the Iraq war, then disarming the PKK is a sure way of restoring the partnership to good health. The PKK presence in northern Iraq has thus far escaped US occupation untouched, and the organization has relaunched attacks inside

The Black Sea Naval Cooperation Task Group (BLACKSEAFOR), a regional maritime security initiative started by Turkey in 2001, was activated August 14-27. With world attention devoted to Iraq and the Middle East, important developments in the nearby Black Sea region involving energy politics, frozen conflicts, and new regional security initiatives