All Policy Analysis by Michael Eisenstadt

On June 20, 2008, Michael Eisenstadt and Patrick Clawson addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. Mr. Eisenstadt is a senior fellow and director of the Institute's Military and Security Studies Program, and Dr. Clawson is deputy director of research at the Institute. The two recently coauthored The Last

Accepted wisdom suggests that preventive military action against Iran's nuclear program would entail significant risks and uncertain prospects of success. Much of the public debate surrounding these risks and uncertainties has focused on strictly military-technical considerations. Although important, these issues do not address the key political and contextual questions underlying

Despite functioning as a de facto state since its creation in 1994, the Palestinian Authority has long been crippled by "the four Fs": fawda (chaos), fitna (strife), falatan (lawlessness), and fassad (corruption). These conditions -- the hallmarks of state failure -- continue to define life in the PA-controlled West Bank

The September 6 Israeli airstrike in northeastern Syria has produced intense speculation. According to the New York Times, Israeli intelligence believes the target was part of a clandestine Syrian nuclear weapons program aided by North Korea. This raises broader questions about the status of Syria's strategic weapons programs, which would

A series of congressional hearings and media interviews by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker this week offered insights into the U.S. strategy in Iraq, and several yardsticks by which future progress there may be evaluated. Encouraging Numbers In his testimony to Congress, General Petraeus stated that "the military

AGENDA: IRAN A new series addressing the most difficult but vital questions for U.S. policymakers confronting the Iranian nuclear challenge. FORTHCOMING 2007 TITLES * Salvation by Aggression? Apocalyptic Visions and Iran's Security Policy By Mehdi Khalaji * The Last Resort: Potential Iranian Responses to Preventive Military Action By Patrick Clawson

On May 11, 2007, Charles Hill, Kurt Campbell, and Michael Eisenstadt addressed The Washington Institute's Soref Symposium. Mr. Hill is a diplomat-in-residence at Yale University. Dr. Campbell is cofounder and chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security. Mr. Eisenstadt is a senior fellow and director of

On April 26, 2007, Jeffrey White, Andrew Exum, and Michael Eisenstadt addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. Mr. White is the Institute's Berrie defense fellow and coauthor, with Mr. Eisenstadt, of the Institute Policy Focus Assessing Iraq's Sunni Arab Insurgency. Mr. Exum, a Soref fellow at the Institute, served

According to press reports, one of the principal policy recommendations of the congressionally mandated Iraq Study Group will be that Washington should engage Iraq’s neighbors—particularly Syria and Iran—in its efforts to staunch the ongoing violence in Iraq. However, both historical precedent and current conditions on the ground in Iraq suggest

Despite U.S. efforts to forge a multinational coalition aimed at curbing the Iranian nuclear program, questions have arisen about the effectiveness of this approach. For example, has Iran converted discussions on the issue into a stalling tactic while it continues to make progress in its nuclear program? Can any international

Faltering diplomacy to suspend Iran's nuclear program -- highlighted by French president Jacques Chirac's September 18, 2006, call to temporarily suspend the threat of United Nations sanctions on Iran -- has revived speculation that the United States might undertake preventive action to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions. U.S. policymakers considering prevention

On August 23, 2006, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Daniel Christman, Emile El-Hokayem, and Michael Eisenstadt addressed The Washington Institute’s Special Policy Forum. General Christman is senior vice president for international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and previously served as assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Recent developments related to the war in Lebanon—a warning from Damascus that Israeli forces in Lebanon should keep away from the Syrian border, the placement of Syrian forces on a heightened state of alert, the explosion of a crude improvised explosive device (IED) on the Syrian side of the Golan

As diplomacy to halt the violence in Lebanon slowly gathers momentum, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has endorsed the idea of an international “stabilization force” to keep the peace, seconding proposals previously put forward by UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, British prime minister Tony Blair, and European Union foreign policy envoy

The capture yesterday of two Israeli soldiers (eight more were killed) in a crossborder raid by the Lebanese group Hizballah, as Israeli forces in Gaza continued to search for an Israeli soldier kidnapped last week by Hamas and to clear Qassam rocket launch sites, marked the opening of a second