Policy Analysis

Reflecting broad foreign policy themes dating to World War I, U.S. grand strategy in the Middle East since the Cold War has focused on establishing and managing a global security system to contain and deter outside threats. Given Eurasia's demographic and economic/technical strength, a dominant power or powers arising from

The prospect of warmer Iranian-Turkish ties is manageable so long as the United States maintains the intent and capability to promote regional security, and assuming Ankara continues to balance any such rapprochement with its ties to the West, Israel, and Arab states.

Of course it would be daunting to solve the conflicts the Islamic State feeds on, but that shouldn't be the mission in the first place.

While Western officials should remain true to their longstanding support for human rights and civil liberties in Iran, they should nevertheless be cautious about their ability to shape the country's internal dynamics, focusing instead on influencing its regional and foreign policies through a mixture of pressure and engagement.

Washington shouldn't rush to resolve issues such as banking restrictions and heavy-water stockpiles without prodding Tehran to take helpful steps of its own.

Half a decade after the 2011 Libyan uprising, the Libyan Eastern Army is fighting against Islamist militants in Benghazi while a unified interim government in Tripoli, guided by Fayez Sarraj and sponsored by the United Nations (UN), is attempting restore order according to the Libyan political agreement of last December

April 28, 2016 In the decades before 2011, Syria’s Baath Party flag, which controlled “society and state," and images of the president and “Leader” dominated all public platforms: the corridors of the state’s institutions and agencies, public squares, and even non-governmental institutions. This branding was most visible in educational institutions

Until ISIS declared its so-called caliphate in 2014, this Islamic theological term barely raised flags for the West.

April 28, 2016 Yazidism is a separate religion. It is not “Umayyad Islam,” and neither is it an off-shoot of Sufism. Islam, notably in its ecstatic rituals, is evidently part of the Yazidi universe ― to which Yazidism has contributed, and from which it has adapted. Still, Yazidism is not

Few people understand that Iranian banks do not live up to the standards U.S. agencies require of all foreign financial institutions, and that this shortcoming has nothing to do with the nuclear deal.

Aside from President Obama, none of the main players in Syria has an interest in rushing toward Raqqa, so they will likely focus on exploiting the various campaigns around Aleppo instead.

April 26, 2016 When most analysts evaluate the Arab Spring uprisings, they point to Tunisia as the single Arab state to have made a relatively peaceful transition to democracy. But this path has been neither linear nor smooth. Tunisia has experienced a slew of both achievements and setbacks since ousting

The divisive discourse on many American campuses threatens to doom Jewish and Muslim student leaders to the mistakes of the past, but bringing them together for mock negotiations is a proven way of helping them understand each other's arguments, grievances, and hopes.

The success of Riyadh's new economic policy will partly depend on changes in social and political attitudes, as well as greater transparency on legal and other issues.

A detailed look at what happened in the first round of this year's parliamentary elections and how it might affect round two.

April 22, 2016 In a statement issued in early March in by the headquarters of State Security in the Cairo suburb of Nasr City, Egyptian Ministry of Interior General Magdy Abdel Ghaffar announced that Hamas was responsible for the June 2015 assassination of Egyptian Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat. Abdel Ghaffar

April 22, 2016 Following a number of nationalist, independent and partisan Egyptian newspapers, including: Al-Ahram, Al Gomhuria, Al Akhbar, Al Youm Al Sabeh, Al-Masry Al-Youm, Al Wafd, Sawt al-Ummah and Al Shorouk in the past weeks reveals a surprising lack of discrepancy in their rhetoric towards events related to the

Rather than debate the hypothetical results if the administration had ordered strikes in 2013, it is more instructive to examine the policy it did execute, which delivered questionable results at significant cost.

The group likely hopes to avoid harsh retaliation by staging attacks from the West Bank instead of Gaza, but Israel could still decide to take forceful action given the nature of the latest plot.

April 22, 2016 In the 1990s and early 2000s, American media referred to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the “Middle East Peace Process,” a testament to the positive political developments achieved in Wye River and Oslo under the stewardship of former President Bill Clinton. President Clinton, a self-declared “honest-broker,” took calculated