Policy Analysis

Last week, the Israeli cabinet approved modified routing of the security fence, the first officially sanctioned changes since the cabinet approved construction in October 2003. The modifications, prompted by an Israeli supreme court decision last summer made to avert Palestinian hardship, are characterized by four major adjustments: (1) revised routing

President Bush declared in Europe that the world cannot rest until there is peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Certainly he knew that Europeans would welcome such words. But I suspect this was less a tactical gesture to the Europeans and more a statement of intent, reflecting his commitment to act

The fall of the Omar Karami cabinet in Beirut on February 28 marked an important development in the brewing confrontation between an energized civil society in Lebanon and the country's Syrian-backed government. While Damascus will likely try to staunch the bleeding of its occupation of Lebanon by redeploying troops—and perhaps

The attached PDF contains papers on U.S. policy and the Middle East Peace Process, authored by David Makovsky, Robert Malley and Steven Spiegel. They are first contribution to the United States Institute of Peace's (USIP) research project on "Arab-Israeli Futures." These papers offer a range of policy options for the

On Monday in Beirut, despite a ban on public demonstrations, 25,000 people took to the streets, chanted "Syria out" and triggered the resignation of the pro-Syrian prime minister and his government. Since the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the former prime minister, on February 14, the Lebanese people—Christians, Muslims and Druze—have

The following is a summary of Matthew Levitt's “Hizballah Finances: Funding the Party of God,” a chapter in the forthcoming volume Terrorism Financing and State Responses in Comparative Perspective, sponsored by the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School. Read the full text of the chapter

Although the elections in Iraq did not produce the nightmare scenarios predicted by many analysts, they have set in motion a process of intense political dialogue and violent brinksmanship that is likely to last throughout 2005....

WASHINGTON - Soner Çagaptay’a göre, ABD için Türkiye hâlâ gözde. Ama, Türkiye’deki Amerikan aleyhtarligindan kaygi duyuyor. Türkiye’nin destegi ABD’nin hareket alanini genisletiyor. Isler Türkiye’siz de oluyor; ama Türkiye ile daha kolay... Gelecek 5-10 yilda Amerikan ordusunda en aktif görev alacak subaylar, 1 Mart tezkeresinden öTürkiye’ye kizginlik duyanlar olacak.

Now that the Israeli government has voted to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank, the key challenge is to stop those who oppose any peace agreement. Despite Friday’s lethal bombing in Tel Aviv by Islamic Jihad, the chief among these groups remains Hamas, the Islamic rejectionist

On March 1, British prime minister Tony Blair will host a conference in London dedicated to garnering support for the Palestinian Authority (PA). The summit is intended to help the new Palestinian leadership strengthen PA institutions, with a special focus on facilitating economic development, encouraging donor pledges, and identifying investment

On February 24, 2005, the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) approved the new cabinet presented by Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei by a vote of fifty-four to ten, with four abstentions, establishing the first official government appointed after the January election of President Mahmoud Abbas. After a week of political infighting over

Freedom As a Strategic Concept Since the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration has radically altered U.S. Middle East policy. Broadly defined, the administration’s view is that democracy and freedom in the region is the central strategic concept offering a serious, long-term alternative to jihadi terrorism. This policy shift marks

On February 16, 2005, Matthew Levitt, senior fellow and director of The Washington Institute's Terrorism Studies Program, testified in a joint hearing before the Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia and the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, House Committee on International Relations. The following is a summary

President Bush's current trip to Europe is being viewed as a means to ease tensions and promote better relations. The often heated rhetoric over the past few years between the U.S. and Europeans has obscured the fact that they are facing many of the same challenges and have encountered similar

The United States is facing an extraordinary moment of challenge in the Middle East, one that demands an integrated U.S. strategy built on a set of three pillars: security, reform, and peace. The security agenda is the most pressing, but it alone is not sufficient. If the United States wants

U.S. president George W. Bush heads to Europe next week, where he will meet with European leaders, including German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. While Bush and Schroeder will certainly spend time discussing and attempting to iron out the differences between the two countries, it is also a good opportunity for the

When will Iran achieve "nuclear status"? When other states form their own policies on the assumption that Iran has nuclear weapons—whether or not it has declared or tested a nuclear bomb. The earliest warning will probably come from Iran acting in a more assertive manner. Despite all the concern in

The United States is facing an extraordinary moment of challenge in the Middle East, one that demands an integrated U.S. strategy built on a set of three pillars: security, reform, and peace. The security agenda is the most pressing, but it alone is not sufficient. If the United States wants

The assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in a massive bombing in Beirut a few days ago came at a time of growing Lebanese opposition to Syria’s fifteen-year "trusteeship" (occupation) of the country. Lebanese politics have become polarized by the September 2004 term extension of the pro-Syrian president