Policy Analysis

Despite weeks of reformist spin about the spring election results, the decision to name a notorious hardliner as head of the Experts Assembly shows that Khamenei is intent on making life even more difficult for President Rouhani's camp.

When it comes to maintaining, improving, or repairing the kingdom's efforts against the Islamic State and other terrorist groups, many of Washington's tried and tested ways of understanding the royal family's power politics need to be discarded.

Convincing Abbas to clarify succession and return the security services to nonpolitical control will require higher-level engagement from Washington and other parties.

The Islamic State (IS or ISIS) is often identified as the world’s leading proponent of Salafism, or fundamentalist Sunni Islam. The IS-affiliated perpetrators of the 2016 Brussels terrorist attacks had close ties with local Salafist groups. In their textbooks, the Islamic State promises to revive a Salafi understanding of Islam

In the early morning hours of May 8, 2012, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kadima party chief Shaul Mofaz dropped a bombshell on the Israeli political system by announcing the formation of a national unity government. Kadima's shocking entry into the Netanyahu government -- only weeks earlier, Mofaz had stated

The conflict in Yemen cannot fairly be described as a singular war. The main war is being fought between a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states who back the Sunni-dominated internationally recognized government against Shia clans called the Houthis. But amid this, another war is being fought against Al-Qaeda in the

In 2008, Saudi Arabia established the Specialized Criminal Court to try al-Qaeda detainees who had been connected to attacks inside the kingdom. Over time, the court's caseload has expanded to include supporters of the Islamic State, Jabhat al-Nusra and other terrorist groups, as well as activists and critics. The court's

Securing the Iraqi capital won’t be easy, but keeping Baghdad safe from the Islamic State is the only way to ensure it doesn’t fall to Shiite militias.

Lasting reform will have to come from within Middle Eastern societies, a panel of American, Israeli, and Saudi experts said at an Asia Society forum.

May 20, 2016 In the Gulf region, a state of tension prevails regarding what has become of the Arab world. Fears are also growing of Iran’s strength, population, regional expansion, semi-revolutionary ideology, increasingly institutionalized political system, and nuclear agreement. Moreover, Iran has actively involved itself in both realms, using its

Michael Mandelbaum's Mission Failure: America and the World in the Post-Cold War Era is an impressive book. As a history of U.S. foreign policy in, as he terms it, its "fourth" or "post-cold war" era, from 1991 to 2014, it's a competent work. But as an analysis of the driving

After the January 25 revolution against Hosni Mubarak's regime just months after Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, became seized with the fear that the Arab spring protests would spread to their kingdoms. Saudi Arabia rushed to contain domestic manifestations of anger among its youth, and King Abdullah

The May 6 meeting between Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief, and Israeli Major General Yaakov Amidror, Israel's former national security advisor—hosted by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy—has spurred a wide range of differing voices in the Arab press to comment. Some newspapers have denounced the

The Obama administration is hardly the first to distance itself from Israel based on false assumptions about Arab priorities.

The prime minister has made a seemingly bitter tradeoff: although he is gaining six seats to ensure his political survival, he has saddled himself with a fierce rival, potentially alienated a loyal, experienced defense minister, and left the door open to unfavorable international initiatives.

Ankara's terrorist adversaries have expanded their destructive reach with mobile rocket launchers and other formidable weapons, so deterring the threat will require a similarly robust Turkish approach to procurement, development, and deployment of various military systems.

Continued bombings could bring a devastating flood of sectarian attacks to Baghdad and delay the battle for Mosul, so the coalition should help Iraqis address the capital's longstanding vulnerability.

The latest bailout from Saudi Arabia may be the last, so Cairo needs to focus on helping itself by implementing complex subsidy and tax reforms.

A breakthrough will likely hinge on whether Netanyahu agrees to make a significant policy shift, thereby assuaging fierce critics within the Labor Party.

Although improved Egyptian-Israeli cooperation and enhanced remote-monitoring technologies will ease the pain of the planned drawdown in Sinai peacekeepers, the situation will only worsen unless Cairo adopts a more appropriate counterinsurgency strategy.