Policy Analysis

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.

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

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

Given the group's ever-lengthening criminal rap sheet around the world, designating it as a TCO has become an open-and-shut case.

The recent Russian "withdrawal" from Syria reflects not a parting of ways with Assad but rather frustration with the regime's poor performance on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.

April 21, 2016 German philosopher and political scientist Hannah Arendt stated in one of her lectures that it is a problem when politicians make wrong decisions, but a catastrophe when they do not know how to present their decisions to the people. This saying perfectly encapsulates the Egyptian president’s latest

Ongoing bilateral security discussions aim to decrease controversial Israeli operations in parts of the West Bank, and their chances for success largely depend on avoiding the political obstacles associated with a formal agreement.

In this new Policy Focus, David Pollock analyzes a significant transition in PA messaging, both governmental and in the Palestinian street, that has taken place during the past two years.

The Obama administration may have launched a new era in U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia, one marred by suspicion over Iran, anti-American radicalization, and lingering questions about the September 11 attacks.