Policy Analysis

On December 4, 2004, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change released a report calling for several reforms to help the UN provide increased security for member nations. One of the chief recommendations identified by the sixteen-member panel was the need for an international

This Sunday, Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem will cast their votes at more than 3,000 polling places and elect a new president of the Palestinian Authority. The turnout is expected to be high, and Israelis have promised to lift checkpoints that otherwise might impede the voting

King Abdullah II bin Al Hussein, descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, is the fourth ruler of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the great-grandson of his namesake, the kingdom's founder. Born on January 30, 1962, to King Hussein's second wife, the British-born Princess Muna, he is the eldest of Hussein's

December 22 was the last day Saudi men could register to vote in municipal elections due to be held February 10 in the capital, Riyadh, and the surrounding area. Despite continuing outbreaks of al-Qaeda-related terrorism (nine terrorists were killed in clashes after two car bombs exploded in Riyadh on December

Something is stirring in Gaza. There is a sense of hope and possibility, a belief that it is time for a change. And there is a new discourse that includes all Palestinian factions and an open questioning of violence. I witnessed all this in an extraordinary event hosted in Gaza

The United States has had critical interests in the Middle East for as long as it has been a global power. Securing the flow of the region’s oil to the world economy has always been a central priority. During the Cold War, competition with the Soviet Union for Middle Eastern

The 6 December 2004 assault on the US consulate in Jeddah ended six months of relative calm in the Kingdom and provided an unwelcome reminder that the Al-Qaeda movement is down but not out in the region. Michael Knights analyses whether the attack was an unsuccessful anomaly or the leading

This is the second in a two-part series on diplomacy surrounding the Iranian nuclear program. Read Part I. The Iran nuclear issue will be on the international agenda in the coming months. The often-postponed visit to Tehran by the head of Russia's Atomic Energy Agency (Minatom) Alexander Rumyantsev to sign

The first round of West Bank municipal balloting occurred on Thursday, December 23. Voting was held in twenty-six locations, ranging from Jericho to smaller towns and villages. This was the first round of local voting since 1976. The results—a Fatah victory but Hamas gains—have important implications for the next Palestinian

On December 15, 2004, Ammar Abdulhamid and Martin Kramer addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. Dr. Kramer, the Wexler-Fromer Fellow at The Washington Institute, is senior research fellow and former director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University. The following is

The most frequent criticism of President Bush's Middle East policy is that he has been too hands-off. Unless America takes the lead, so the argument goes, the "peace process" will languish. In other words, U.S. activism is the key to progress. This is, by and large, bad analysis and a

As Iraqi elections rapidly approach despite an entrenched and violent insurgency, the country's economic challenges are extensive. The government is faced with the momentous task of transforming a war torn, state-dominated economy into a transparent, investment-friendly institution, all during the course of daily political violence. Problems Inherited from the Former

The death of Yasser Arafat and the approach of Palestinian elections on January 9 have rekindled hopes for the peace process. However, if history is a guide, Hizballah and Iran—which worked tirelessly to undermine the Oslo Process—will try to sabotage such efforts. (Indeed, Israeli intelligence reports cited in the Israeli

On December 15, 2004, Ammar Abdulhamid and Martin Kramer addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. Mr. Abdulhamid, a Syrian writer and intellectual, is the coordinator of the Tharwa Project, a program designed to shed light on the aspirations and concerns of religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East

Attacks by insurgents on Iraqi police officers and facilities have become a major feature of this stage of the insurgency in Iraq. Hundreds of police personnel have been killed, the police in some areas have been routed by insurgent forces, and police have been penetrated and subverted by the insurgents

The announcement Sunday that Israel would release 170 Palestinian prisoners as a "gesture of goodwill, friendship, and gratitude" to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is the latest in a series of events, statements, and diplomatic activity over the past several weeks that has signaled a warming in Egyptian-Israeli relations. While it

Seeking to prevent terror propaganda and incitement to terror in America, the U.S. government added al-Manar (Arabic for "the beacon"), the official television mouthpiece of Hizballah, or the Lebanese Party of God, to the Terrorism Exclusion List (TEL). By designating the network as a terrorist organization the government will effectively

Today, President George W. Bush will sign the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA), which represents the most dramatic and fundamental changes to the U.S. intelligence community since 1947, when the CIA was created. While public and media attention has been focused on the establishment of a

Though most famous for funding and organizing suicide bombings and beheadings in Iraq, Ahmad Fadil Nazal al-Khalaylah -- aka Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- has long assumed a leading role in terrorist operations in other countries, including his native Jordan. An East Banker and a member of the Bani Hassan tribe

This is the first part of a two-part series on diplomacy surrounding the Iranian nuclear program and looks at U.S.-European relations. Read Part II. As European and Iranian officials began negotiations December 14 on whether to make permanent Iran's temporary suspension of uranium enrichment, eight former Western foreign ministers issued