All Policy Analysis by John Hannah

The Arab world is approaching a historic crossroad. One path leads toward domestic liberalization, regional moderation, and peace with Israel. The other path contains the prospect of continued tyranny, external adventurism, and, eventually, war. These competing visions of the Arab future have become embodied in the policies of Egypt and

As totalitarianism crumbles in Eastern Europe, a fascinating pattern has begun to emerge. Hand-in-hand with promises of political and economic reform, new governments in one Warsaw Pact country after another have declared a third, more surprising, objective: the re-establishment of full diplomatic relations with Israel. One notable expression of this

The superpower summit meeting in the Mediterranean will no doubt be dominated by talk of Eastern Europe. But while in the neighborhood of the Middle East, President Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev should also take a few minutes to discuss Moscow's readiness to cooperate in advancing the Arab-Israeli peace

Though the impact of the Soviet Union’s “new thinking” has been less dramatic in the Middle East than in other regions of Third World conflict, its effects are nonetheless beginning to be felt. An important development in this regard has been signs of decreasing Soviet support for Syria, the Arab

Hungary recently became the first Warsaw Pact country to restore full diplomatic relations with Israel after having severed them during the 1967 Middle East war. Budapest's decision illustrated the dramatic changes within Hungary and focused attention on another issue: When will the Soviet Union follow suit? After all, it was

In the summer of 1982, as Israeli troops and artillery laid siege to Beirut, the international community wasted no time in demanding that the United States act to restrain its ally. Now, seven years later, with Syrian troops inflicting what is by all accounts a much more devastating horror on

Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze's recent trip to the Middle East demonstrates conclusively that the Soviet Union plans to be a major player in the region's diplomacy. The United States needs to find out whether Moscow intends to be a peacemaker as well. To do so, Washington must begin to seize

What a difference a decade makes. The last time a Soviet foreign minister traveled to the Middle East, his sole objective was to undermine the Arab-Israeli peace process. Now, ten years later, Moscow's chief diplomat is helping to assemble a regional coalition in favor of a negotiated settlement. Back in

As the Moscow summit approaches, and as the prospects for his Arab- Israeli peace initiative grow increasingly dim, the time has come for Secretary of State George Shultz to seize the diplomatic high road and publicly challenge the Soviet Union to put up or shut up on the question of

When the Soviets proposed to meet Israeli representatives for the first time in 19 years, some observers hailed the announcement as a signal that Moscow had finally gotten serious about Middle East peace. With the abrupt breakdown of those talks in Helsinki on Aug. 18, however, that analysis has proven