Policy Analysis

Over the last four years, Kurds in Iran have watched Kurdish communities in Syria and Iraq continue to suffer losses at the hands of hostile forces, disoriented by the turbulent shifts in Washington’s decision-making. It once seemed that the United States would support change in Iran beneficial to the country’s

The Yemen Matrix is a guide to the relationships between the core actors involved in the country’s various conflicts. It is meant to be a starter resource for new analysts, a quick-access volume for policymakers, and a refresher for experts.

Close reading of Israel’s agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain shows how their strictly bilateral focus could affect the chances for people-to-people engagement and regional security cooperation, depending on each government's political will.

The 2014 National Dialogue Conference allowed for ample discussion of the southern issue in Yemen. Now, all sides must help implement the solutions outlined there and in the more recent Riyadh Agreement to ensure that a just solution to the southern issue is achieved.

As technocrats increasingly fill key government roles, U.S. officials need to help Baghdad withstand the inevitable counterpunch from political and militia factions used to dictating such appointments.

Selling the advanced U.S. jet to a foreign government ought to signal the highest confidence in that country’s warfighting capabilities, decisionmaking on the use of force, and commitment to protecting sensitive technology, but the UAE’s record on each of these issues is mixed.

The combination of new demand projections, green consumer trends, pandemic-related shifts, and other factors may not spell the end of Middle Eastern oil economies quite yet, but it is the first draft of their obituary.

On an evening during Ramadan in 2012, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan (MbZ) asked a group of statesmen, including sheikhs from al-Nahyan , intellectuals, and newspaper writers: “What if the UAE was attacked in its own backyard? What if Abu Dhabi is targeted by military action

The fact that American rather than Russian mediation helped broker a major Middle East peace agreement is a blow to Putin’s ongoing quest for restored great-power status.

Former diplomats and experts discuss what steps each party should take after the historic White House signing ceremony, and how to bring the Palestinians and other actors into the fold.

To strengthen Iraq’s capacity for resisting militia and foreign influence, Washington should keep supporting the campaign to remake the military one commander at a time.

The Palestinian issue has become far less of a priority for most Arab states, who now tend to see Israel as a bulwark against regional threats and a partner on urgent health, water, and food-security needs.

The Washington meeting between the United States and Qatar, overlapping with the Israel-UAE signing ceremony on normalization, creates a unique opportunity to resolve the dispute between U.S. allies.

The announcement of a peace deal between Israel and Bahrain suggests that the Gulf island kingdom has reassessed the danger of opposition from both its majority Shia population and its Sunni community.

Putin’s Russia and the West have never shared the same goals or threat perceptions regarding terrorism and other regional issues, so Washington should craft its Syria policy accordingly.

Netanyahu’s strategy of bypassing the intractable Palestinian issue has paid substantial dividends worldwide, but a peace treaty ‘domino effect’ is unlikely in the near term given various calculations in Riyadh and other Arab capitals.

In the weeks since U.S., Emirati, and Israeli leaders announced a historic normalization agreement on August 13, Qatari media has leveled major criticism of the deal. Yet the motivations for this criticism seem to reflect direct competition between Qatar and the UAE as much as genuine critique. The direct competition

In 1992, as I watched the celebrations for the inauguration of al-Tabiqayn Bridge in Baghdad (formerly, al-Qa’id Bridge) on Al-Shabab Television, I turned to my wife and said: “wouldn’t it have been better for us if the cost of this bridge had been spent on better flour for us to

Continuing the status quo—a large American presence, but uncertain American commitment—would be a high-cost, high-risk, low-reward approach.

Skillful U.S. and Arab diplomacy could use normalization and the accompanying annexation freeze as a base for renewed momentum toward an eventual two-state solution.