All Policy Analysis by Dennis Ross

To: President George W. Bush From: Dennis Ross Subject: This week's visit with the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority Mr. President, no doubt you have received many briefings on this topic, but having negotiated with everybody you will be seeing this week and having just returned from the area

The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran presents an interesting paradox: Though almost certainly the product of rigorous assessment and questioning, it may actually leave us less secure over time. How can such an improved product of spycraft have such a negative effect? It can when it frames the issue mistakenly

The Annapolis meeting was an impressive event. It brought nearly fifty nations together ostensibly in support of Arab-Israeli peace. While the Syrians came to emphasize their agenda on the Golan Heights, the other Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, came in response to an American invitation to resume the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations

Rarely have we faced more daunting problems in the Middle east and seemed farther away from resolving or even defusing them. There is surely no more important foreign-policy priority than finding ways to ameliorate the challenges and conflicts that confront us in the region. This won't be done with slogans

Today, the United States will convene a large international gathering to re-launch Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. With this, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has followed through on her commitment, made early this year, to help usher in a time of peace for these two historic enemies. Originally, she intended for them to

Today, nearly 50 nations and organizations will convene in Annapolis, Md., to talk, in theory, about support for Israeli-Palestinian peace. I say in theory because the Syrian deputy foreign minister, for example, will have a different agenda -- an agenda related to the Syrians' insistence that only a "comprehensive settlement,"

Just days before President George W. Bush hosted a Middle East peace "meeting" in Annapolis intended to provide new impetus for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, The Washington Institute held a special policy forum with David Makovsky and Dennis Ross to assess the evolution of the Annapolis summit

If there is one thing that Iraq does not need, it is additional sources of conflict and instability. Right now, the only part of Iraq that is stable and shows prospects o developing economically and politically is the Kurdish areas of the north. Though no without challenges, especially given the

Secretary of State Rice is again shuttling back and forth to the Middle East, with plans to convene an international meeting in Annapolis later this month with the Israelis, Palestinians and leaders from a number of Arab countries. Her aim is to have the participants endorse a joint statement on

From "Mission Accomplished" to his September trip to Anbar province, President Bush has excelled at stagecraft when it comes to Iraq. Pulling rabbits out of hats and waving scarves like a diplomatic David Copperfield, he has staged events and shaped imagery to build support for his strategies, while undercutting his

On October 21, 2007, David Makovsky, Daniel Kurtzer, Jim Hoagland, and Dennis Ross addressed The Washington Institute's Weinberg Founders Conference. The following is a summary of their remarks. In a spirited discussion moderated by Dennis Ross and David Makovsky of The Washington Insitute, former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in the Middle East on a trip designed to help prepare for the meeting she intends to convene with Israelis, Palestinians and Arab states at the end of November. She has a great deal of work to do and not a lot of time

Secretary of State Rice is planning to convene an international meeting in Annapolis sometime in November. While President Bush has spent little time during his tenure on Arab-Israeli peacemaking, he has embraced Secretary Rice's ambitious desire to use the Annapolis meeting to endorse a statement of principles on how to

Sometimes in international relations it is good to preserve mystery. The irony is that often when an action has been taken but not admitted, everyone seems to know anyway. That certainly seems to be the case with Israel's military strike against a target in northern Syria. The Israelis aren't talking

When surveying the challenges we face internationally, it is easy to put Russia on the back burner. Consider what the next president is likely to inherit internationally. In Iraq, disengaging in a way that contains the turmoil from spilling over into the region and still preserves some prospect of a