Policy Analysis

Iran, a former world power and now rising regional power, has a proud military history stretching back four thousand years. For the last thirty, Iran and the United States have been locked in a hostile embrace and, on several occasions during the latter phases of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, engaged

Oftentimes, lecturing on Turkey to audiences across the United States, I find myself amiss, in need of a map to identify Turkey's geographic location. In such cases, I resort to a virtual map, using my fingers to sketch Turkey's surrounding regions: the Middle East, Europe, Black Sea, Mediterranean and Caucasus

On Tuesday, U.S. troops will leave Iraqi cities in accordance with an agreement negotiated under President Bush. Although President Obama has largely endorsed the Bush timeline for reducing the U.S. military presence in Iraq, far less clear is the extent to which he has also adopted his predecessor's appreciation for

The questionable outcome of Iran's June 12 presidential election and the regime's harsh suppression of the ensuing popular protests have sparked a global outcry, and would appear to offer a golden opportunity to rally international pressure on Tehran. The international community's response, however, has so far offered little in concrete

Eighteen months have passed since the Paris donor conference, where members of the international community promised the Palestinian government $1.45 billion in assistance for its 2009 budget. The Palestinian Authority (PA), however, has received less than a quarter of this amount, and Arab governments in particular have fallen short, contributing

Mass demonstrations in Iran protesting the election results have found a very receptive audience in Europe. European governments have said that the Iranian mullahs have stolen the elections, and voiced strong support for the demonstrators. In contrast, in the U.S, President Obama has been low key on Iran, only gradually

Most commentary on the regional reaction to Iran's postelection strife divides Arabs into pro-Iranian and pro-American camps, a simplistic division that misses a key distinction. At the official or semiofficial level, Arab reaction to Iran's current travail is divided into three, not two, main parts: the usual handful of pro-Iranian-government

According to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), the U.S. military will complete its withdrawal from Iraqi cities on June 30, 2009. The redeployments have both real and symbolic importance, and will mark a milestone in the Obama administration's cautious drawdown of Washington's military commitment. Nonetheless, the U.S. military will

This week, news reports suggest that the Iranian regime is using technology obtained from Siemens, the German energy and engineering giant, and its partner Nokia to crack down on internet access, cell phone use, and Twitter accounts of protesters and dissidents. This disclosure highlights once again German technology's critical role

How has the NYPD established a global counterterorism capability?

On June 18, 2009, David Crist and Steven Ward addressed a special Policy Forum at The Washington Institute to discuss the lessons that Iran and the United States drew from their military encounters in the 1980s. David Crist is senior historian for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

The growing number of weapons caches, bomb-making materiel, and rocket-launching facilities discovered by coalition forces in the Iraqi province of Maysan underscores the ongoing sophistication and scale of so-called "Special Groups." These groups consist of Shiite Arab militants who draw on Iranian cross-border logistical support, training, shelter, and funding to

It is far too early to draw any hard conclusions about the ongoing uprising in Iran, but one thing seems clear enough: Once again, Iran has confounded the expectations and assumptions of many a Western Iran expert when it comes to what Iranians want, what they are prepared to do

In response to growing international pressure since the September 11 attacks, al-Qaeda has increasingly relied on the internet to spread its message and gain support throughout the world. In addition, al-Qaeda has used the web's broad reach, timely efficiency, and certain degree of anonymity and security as a conduit for

Institute senior fellow Mehdi Khalaji and Ira Weiner fellow Michael Singh participated in a roundtable-style special hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the political crisis in Iran. Watch U.S. Senate video of this event (the hearing begins at 36:30).

At the end of June, Iraq is expected to award service contracts to international oil companies in an effort to boost production at six of the country's giant oil fields. The twenty-year contracts not only are part of a development program intended to nearly triple Iraq's oil production, they also

Iran's fraudulent election and subsequent civil strife demonstrate that, whatever that country's people think about President Obama's desire for mutual respect, the Iranian government is determined to obstruct exactly that goal. Meanwhile, on the Arab side of the Gulf, President Obama's major address to the world's Muslims from Cairo and

On June 17, 2009, Rep. Howard Berman and David Makovsky addressed a special Policy Forum at The Washington Institute to mark the publication of Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East, coauthored by David Makovsky and Dennis Ross. Representative Berman (D-CA) is the

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's Friday sermon, which called for an end to mass protests contesting the outcome of last week's presidential elections and which carried an implicit threat of "bloodshed and chaos" if they continued, has raised the stakes in the ongoing standoff between the government and opposition in Iran. The

With Iranians still blaming the U.S. for a coup in 1953, it might be understandable why President Obama has been low-key in dealing with the violence and disputed results of the Iranian election. He wants to deprive the mullahs of an enemy in their faceoff with hundreds of thousands of