Policy Analysis

The perpetrators of the ongoing string of major terrorist attacks are obvious, but Turkey's bitterly divided pro- and anti-Erdogan camps refuse to focus on the foreign and domestic policy factors underlying the violence.

The secretary's latest remarks beg the question: at a time when Israelis and Palestinians are clearly unable to strike a grand deal, why not put ideology aside, jettison the administration's all-or-nothing approach, and lay out more modest parameters on settlements, incitement, and other concrete issues?

These new sanctions the Obama administration announced Thursday in response to Moscow's hacking efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election are hardly the first against Russia -- and neither is the expulsion of 35 diplomats suspected as spies. They nonetheless send a strong message and show the U.S. is taking

The generous relocation deal and proposed outpost legalization bill have drawn fire for appeasing settlers, who seem to believe that the Trump administration will give them even more leverage to expand their presence in the West Bank.

The legal consequences of UNSCR 2334 may be significant, while the impact on U.S.-Israeli relations and future peacemaking efforts could be profound.

Moscow still aims to undermine the very values that hold the West together, but the United States and its allies have not mustered the moral and strategic clarity needed to stave off this threat.

The Washington Institute's Anna Borshchevskaya and Cipher Brief's Leone Lakhani review Moscow's 2016 track record on the Syria war, Iran, and other Middle East-related issues.

Peace in the Middle East will not be accomplished through a UN vote, but rather through the renewal of U.S. leadership in the region and the rebuilding of trust with America's partners there.

Making the concept of Israeli-Palestinian land swaps harder to implement is probably not the legacy President Obama wants, yet it may be one he has just made more likely.

Establishing safe zones, pursuing a tougher line of negotiation with Russia, and limiting Iran's destabilizing presence are the best ways of addressing the country's de facto partition.

The heavy presence of pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian ministers is troubling, but Hariri and his allies can still preserve Lebanon's sovereignty by pushing for a balanced electoral law and a timely parliamentary ballot.

The Trump administration cannot say it is going to be tougher on Iran and at the same time partner with Russia in Syria -- the two goals are mutually exclusive under the current circumstances.

If Iranian leaders want to advance a world governed by the relative justice of international law, which however imperfect is better than a world in which "the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must", they will have to cede the same implicit claims of exceptionalism that they loathe the U.S. and Israel for.

In addition to expanding and professionalizing their traditional roles at home, Basij paramilitary forces are poised to assume a larger share of the fighting in Syria alongside Iran's foreign militia proxies.

If Erdogan can temper his political agenda amid a seemingly endless series of violent incidents, he will go down in history as one of Turkey’s most influential leaders, but otherwise he will be remembered as the man who drove his country into the ground.

In this era, a political observer will not have to look towards the statements coming out of Tel Aviv to learn the nature of Israeli-Egyptian cooperation.

Deeply polarized and facing a growing roster of external and internal enemies, Turkey seems headed for rough waters in 2017, and its institutions may not be strong enough anymore to correct course.

An American and European-backed administrative “Marshall Plan” – contingent upon many requirements – is necessary in order to save Kurdistan.

Far from sparking World War III, the Ankara assassination will probably spur a Russian escalation against 'terrorists' in Syria and exacerbate internal divisions in Turkey.

Sufism has been repeatedly invoked in U.S. foreign policy circles as a possible ideological counterbalance to extremist ideologies in the Middle East and greater "Islamic world." On a superficial level, for those who view politics as a "battle of ideas," the imagery of pacifist whirling dervishes provides a compelling contrast