Policy Analysis

According to one Kurdish proverb, “the Kurd loses at the negotiating table in hours what he has gained on the battlefield over years.” Indeed, although in recent years Syrian Kurdish organizations have demonstrated their military effectiveness in the war against the Islamic State, they have so far been unable to

Today, Jordan’s government is facing backlash after a long period of corruption labeled a “deep state” system. Citizens are organizing demonstrations rejecting federal decisions to increase taxes and impose further strict rules on the people that would negatively affect their livelihoods. Recently, some political figures have used the term "deep

Political conflict in the Islamic world began between two schools headed by the Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib and Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan. A bloody fight for power led to a conflict that still persists today in the form of the Sunni-Shia divide and the Turkish-Arab-Iranian conflict. Defining the current

Next week, President Rouhani of Iran will visit China for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, on the margins of a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Two weeks ago, coincidentally, I spoke in Shanghai at a mid-sized meeting billed as “the first conference on Syria ever held in

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is driven by several factors: ethnic, national, historical, and religious. This brief essay focuses on the religious dimension of the conflict, which both historical and recent events suggest lies at its core. That much is almost a truism. What is less often appreciated, however, is how much

Background: The Infallible Israeli Right-Wing As Israel faces an election due in 2019, the factors that have caused the deterioration of the Israeli left will likely inhibit their ability to take the majority from the right-wing Likud. Since 2009, Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu has held onto power as the Prime

To paraphrase Daniel Patrick Moynihan, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own numbers. After a bloody week earlier this month in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, emotions all around the world are running high, with recriminations flying on both sides of the argument regarding whether Israel used excessive

Russia is victorious in Syria. It has succeeded in rescuing the Damascus regime, its difficult yet valuable client, from what seemed to be an unavoidable demise. More importantly, it has leveraged the crisis management of the Syrian conflict to create a regional balance between seemingly incompatible powers — Israel, Turkey

On May 6, 2018, municipal elections in Tunisia -- the one country often hailed as the Arab Spring’s sole success story -- were finally held, after being postponed several times. Just a few months ago, many observers were really skeptical about the feasibility of such an event. Supporters put forward

Russia is challenging the West, including through its current efforts to gain a foothold in Syria and in a number of countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The situation in Syria serves as a clear example of Russian meddling, but the actual challenge does not stop there. To

To measure Sisi’s popularity during the recent Egyptian presidential elections, supporters and opponents of President al-Sisi both published photos: of crowded polling stations, or of empty polling stationsSisi’s opponents did not limit themselves to publishing pictures of empty polling stations and stories of forced mobilization on the part of the

The Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) announced the official results of the Iraqi parliamentary election on the early hours of May 19 after several delays. In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the unofficial and the official results were mired by claims of widespread electoral fraud in favor of the two

Meetings between U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and Saudi negotiators have begun paving the way for U.S. companies to sell nuclear technology to the kingdom. The Saudis are likely to reject any deal that does not give them the option of enriching uranium at a low level. So far

Many debates raged on Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood when King Salman bin Abdulaziz first came to power. Some say that Salman’s ascension represented a revolt against the Brotherhood, while others claimed that some aspects of Brotherhood thought remained influential in the country. In early 2015, the late

Last week the new U.S. secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, chose to visit the Middle East within hours of his appointment. He did not stop in Egypt, but the Middle East that the Trump administration aims to stabilize will not be achieved if Egypt becomes engaged in a war with

Firas Elias is precisely correct that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is well poised to play a more prominent role in Iranian politics. And he is unfortunately right that this development may well lead to a war, but that would happen for the exact opposite reasons of what he predicts

The latest exchanges of missiles between Iran and Israel inside Syria are a vivid symptom—but not the root cause—of the looming specter of large-scale armed conflict in that theater. In fact, quite apart from this week’s U.S. decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, other recent regional and international

Since the death of Kuwait’s first tyrant in 1915, Mubarak, Kuwait has been ruled by two of his sons Jaber and Salem and their descendants. The harmonious alternation between Jaber and Salem, branches of the ruling family stood until 2006 when Saad al-Abdullah ruled Kuwait for nine days and was

In an ideal world, Israel, as a Jewish majority state holding on and developing the age-old Jewish civil and spiritual traditions, and home to a thriving Arab community, would sit next to a Palestinian state, home to its Arab majority and to an integrated Jewish community of citizens and residents

Political hypocrisy and multiple-, not just double-, standards are nothing new in the Middle East, against which Soz makes an impassioned case. Kurds of the region have been on the receiving end of this, exacerbated by lack of accountable governance, respect for human rights and lingering historical resentments. Comparing Israel’s