Policy Analysis

After so much hope, what happened?

If the American-Russian diplomatic process permanently fails, Syria could be on the brink of becoming the epicenter of international jihadism.

As Shiite militias in Iraq attempt to become potent political actors, they may follow Hezbollah's Lebanese model: using military leverage over the government to wrestle power on Iran's behalf.

In addition to the schadenfreude of many loyal to the Islamist movement after the attack, there were other voices which were impossible to ignore: those of a group mourning for the soldiers while simultaneously criticizing the army’s leadership.

The devastation of Aleppo, Idlib, and Tikrit may motivate the Sunni leaders in Mosul and Raqqa to think and act politically rather than violently.

What is striking today are the historical similarities between the first Ottoman venture in Northern Iraq and the current deployment of Turkish troops in Bashiqa and other areas of Iraqi Kurdistan.

While at first sight appealing, the notion of moderate Islam constitutes an undue concession to the argument that individuals and societies who hold Islam as part of their faith defined primarily by their religious affiliation.

However hard it seems for Iran to fight against the United States’ “soft war,” nothing appears easier and less costly than mobilizing Iranians worldwide against Saudi Arabia or poisoning their consciencewith anti-Arab sentiments.

With some Arabs leading the call, various dissidents like the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) core of the NCRI are accelerating their calls for regime change in Iran.

What binds Saudi Arabia with Japan, of course, and increasingly separates it from the U.S., is oil. Saudi Arabia is by far the world’s largest exporter of it; Japan is one of the largest importers.

In order to start a “holy war” against the West, al Qaeda tried to lure Western countries into the Middle Eastern military quagmire. ISIS’ goal, however, is to create a social conflict in the West in order to weaken it, since a weakened enemy is an easier target in the long run.

It seems that more than five years of the Syrian crisis are not enough for a a Syrian to say, “I have a dream!”

September 28, 2016 In a bold state-like move, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party ( PYD) conducted censuses in the Rojava canton of Jazira. The government of the autonomous region seems to realize that being the “good guys” on the battlefield is not enough. To be legitimate rulers, they need to

The author would like to thank Dr. Jacob Olidort for his assistance and support on this piece. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has a much more effective online media program than its jihadi neighbors and predecessors: it recruits and radicalizes supporters while provoking and terrorizing enemies. Yet

An interview with peace activist Professor Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi As a non-violent form of resistance to the Israeli occupation, the anti-normalization movement gained ground in the aftermath of the Al-Aqsa Intifada of 2000. Extremist groups such as Hamas and the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) oppose

On the shore of Nice’s Promenade des Anglais, where July’s Bastille Day attack killed 85 people, a photograph of a woman removing a layer of clothes with French police officers standing over her went viral. The image exposed the irony of a country that classifies itself as a “secular” republic

The sectarian, ethnic "holy wars" manifesting in Syria and Iraq are morphing into permanent security and financial liabilities for the international community. Have the people of Iraq and Syria decided that they are better off when they are separate but equal? In 2003, Iraq was enshrined with a constitution that

People around world are prone to oversimplify the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Some say, for example, that they are no more than a transitory or incidental phenomenon. Others posit that they are merely a gang of mercenaries who can be eliminated through military effort alone. Yet, regardless of

The massacre in an Orlando nightclub on June 12 by an individual claiming to belong to ISIS provoked immediate and firm condemnation from both Arab governments and the liberal Arab elite. However, much of the Arab media’s coverage avoided describing the place of the attack in detail, omitting that it

After the overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011, international actors and observers turned their attention to the Islamists in Egypt. All began monitoring how Islamism would be incorporated into the political equation. Led by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamists were dealing with the new struggle around