All Policy Analysis by David Schenker

PolicyWatch 1693 is the second in a two-part series discussing U.S. military assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). This piece addresses the program's future direction, while PolicyWatch 1692 examined the context of the U.S. aid program. Since 2005, Washington has obligated more than $700 million in military assistance to

PolicyWatch 1692 is the first in a two-part series discussing U.S. military assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). This piece examines the context of the U.S. aid program, while PolicyWatch 1693 addresses the program's future direction. The August 3 fatal shooting of an Israel Defense Forces officer by a

Since the 1980s, the Shia terrorist group Hezbollah has not been given to blunt public moralizing about the need for women to wear the veil. It originally made no secret of its desire to convert Lebanon into a Shia Islamic state -- the organization's 1985 manifesto called for the establishment

Yesterday, Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) soldiers opened fire on an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit removing a tree near the border security fence. In the resulting fighting, a senior IDF officer, two Lebanese soldiers, and a Lebanese journalist were killed, making the clash the most intense military engagement in the

For Washington, the death this week of Lebanon's most prominent and respected Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, was a bittersweet moment. In 1983, Fadlallah, a vocal proponent of suicide bombings, reportedly blessed the bombers of the US Embassy and Marine Barracks in Beirut that killed over 240

Last month, a power struggle between rival factions in the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) came to a head when the Hamas-aligned "hawks" attempted to install their preferred candidate as secretary-general of the organization's political party, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), over protests from the "doves." Reconciliation efforts have thus far

The Ghosts of Martyr's Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon's Life Struggle By Michael Young (Simon & Schuster, 295 pages, $26.00) This past February, Le Monde published a detailed report suggesting that Hezbollah participated in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. The story was old news