Policy Analysis

The world was caught unprepared by the COVID-19 outbreak, which has unleashed an unprecedented global crisis and left more than one hundred thousand people dead and many more in grave condition. The pandemic shows no signs of abating and the most recent assessments project tens of thousands of more deaths

In an April 22 tweet, President Trump spoke of instructing the U.S. Navy to destroy any Iranian gunboats that "harass our ships at sea." Aside from whether it departed from existing U.S. rules of engagement, the statement highlighted a persistent reality: the military threat posed by Iranian forces in the

With the announcement this week that Binyamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu would remain Israel’s prime minister in a new “emergency national unity” government, the latest poll shows that 62% of Israelis express support for this unusual political deal. Opposition leader Benny Gantz, who fell just short of unseating Netanyahu in an unprecedented

Countries around the world are addressing the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic based on their unique needs and abilities to confront it. Morocco's position as a north African country with extensive ties to Europe, which has been a key feature of the Moroccan economy, is now presenting numerous economic and

Given that the local economic repercussions of COVID-19 could be severe, Washington should prepare for the prospect of instability erupting in Africa’s largest country.

Despite Erdogan’s pandemic missteps and repressively conservative agenda, Turkey’s problem-solving opposition parties and the secularist youths who support them give hope that democracy will endure.

Given the short U.S. election calendar, Netanyahu is adamant about securing approval for unilateral moves in the West Bank by July 1, a timetable that may hold damaging implications for Israeli relations with multiple countries.

The prospect of a full shale collapse has spurred politicians and oil companies to raise furious questions about the future of U.S. economic and military cooperation with Saudi Arabia.

Recent joint drills by the U.S. Navy, Army, and Air Force have essentially challenged Tehran to a game of contested deterrence, spurring its forces to respond with swarm maneuvers and a vessel seizure.

The painting and the historical scene it depicts remind us that many aspects of the coronavirus pandemic—from equipment rationing to ‘Orient blaming’ to political clashes with medical science—are nothing new.

His father, King Hussein, had always wanted it that way, he just never told anybody. Except me.

To make the continent a less hospitable jurisdiction for the group’s criminal schemes, European authorities will have to take the lead in developing cases, armed with firm political will and a more intelligence-driven approach.

Ceasefire agreements and contagion concerns will likely limit Turkish operations in Syria for the time being, but Ankara has no such constraints in its Libya proxy war.

With the IRGC spearheading the containment effort, the clergy shooting itself in the foot, and the regime widening its cyber-repression, Iran is ripe for an evolution in which Khamenei or his successor give way to de facto military rule.

Read or watch an expert conversation on the immediate and long-term effects of the Islamic Republic’s response to the pandemic. How will Iranian politics change? How much aid can Tehran get under sanctions? How will the global economic slowdown affect daily life there?

When Jordan traced its first case of coronavirus to an individual who had traveled to Italy on March 2, the response was swift. March air raid sirens, which called for a full curfew and social distancing, the likes of which the nation had not witnessed since September 1971. The semi-rentier

Close analysis of Iranian history textbooks indicates that not even the regime regards the 1953 coup as a seminal event in souring bilateral relations.

As the global coronavirus pandemic seems to have placed the world in the eye of a collective storm, with over 120,000 confirmed deaths, the global economy has entered a state of acute stagnation and contraction across diverse sectors, suggesting the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s

In her December 2019 piece for Quartz, the geopolitics expert Annalisa Merelli identified 20 countries now governed by populist movements and 14 other countries—Iraq included—where populist parties played a pivotal role in policy making. The quick spread of populist movements over the past few years has been a reactionary response

Finding an acceptable process to install a new transitional leader is hard; finding a person with the requisite legitimacy to play that role may be harder still.