Policy Analysis

Now that the Iraqi government has regained access to half of Kirkuk by force, Washington should act quickly to prevent a violent local backlash.

Watch the governor of Iraq's central bank discuss steps to combat financial activity from the receding caliphate.

Omer Carmi, a lead researcher with the Israel Defense Forces, analyzes the components of the Iran Threat Network and builds a compelling case for neutralizing harmful Iranian activity in the region and beyond.

October 16, 2017 The current U.S. administration sees Iran and its rising political clout in Iraq and beyond as a grave threat to its own interests and those of its allies in the Middle East. As a result, Washington has pursued a political strategy that centers on limiting Iran’s influence

October 16, 2017 Fear that Iran is working to build a bridge to the Mediterranean as a path to regional hegemony is hanging over U.S. military thinking and actions in Iraq and Syria. Allowing this suspicion to drive strategy could drag America into an unpredictable conflict that may continue long

Although the cessation of governance-related media releases suggests a full retreat, IS remains active in military campaigns and eager to rise again by taking advantage of local grievances.

In the coming days, Kirkuk will either explode into open fighting between Kurdish and Iraqi forces or spur a much-needed dialogue between Baghdad and Erbil.

After decertifying the JCPOA, President Trump now has leverage to negotiate a better agreement.

From countering Iran and its proxies to working directly with Israel, Egyptian survey respondents seem remarkably willing to follow Washington's lead on multiple regional issues.

October 12, 2017 As President Trump unveils his revised U.S. strategy to contain Iran, surveys reveal that key Arab publics in the region share his antipathy toward Tehran. Previously reported polls from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and even Qatar, sometimes depicted as pro-Iranian, demonstrated solid majorities in each country with unfavorable

Given the IAEA's legal uncertainty about Parchin and the Security Council's discord about further inspections, the Trump administration needs to decide how hard to press for more answers on weaponization issues.

In practical terms, scrapping and replacing the JCPOA is a nonstarter, so the administration should instead focus on countering Iran as its top regional priority -- and decide how it will respond when Tehran pushes back.

Given its recent military movements and high-level contacts with Turkey and Baghdad, Iran may be looking to exact an intolerable cost on the KRG.

Had Walt and Mearsheimer not been so committed to indicting pro-Israel groups with responsibility for the failures of U.S. policy in the Middle East, they could have raised legitimate issues worth debating.

Regional leaders believe the administration mishandled Iran and the Arab Spring, and this belief had the unintended effect of aligning their interests with Netanyahu's.

Even if Erdogan strikes a deal to keep the crisis from boiling over, Washington has shown him that there are limits to U.S. tolerance of his authoritarian balancing act.

Putin's recent summit with the Saudi leader is another diplomatic coup for the Kremlin, but it does not mark a fundamental shift in Russia's calculus on Iran or other regional issues.

In a radical rethinking of the origins of U.S. Middle East policy, Robert Satloff suggests that two key ideas guiding Washington's actions in the region for the past three-quarters of a century were born in the bargain U.S. leaders made with Vichy French officers after Allied troops landed in North Africa during World War II.

Factors such as corruption, socioeconomic inequity, and ignorance among Russian officials regarding Islam could end up fueling radicalism rather than deterring it.

The threat of decertifying the nuclear deal gives the administration an opening with those who wish to preserve it, so the president should use this leverage wisely rather than taking an all-or-nothing approach.