Policy Analysis

By siding with the Assad regime and taking up arms against Sunni rebels, Hezbollah has placed itself at the epicenter of a sectarian conflict that has nothing to do with its purported raison d'etre of fighting Israel.

Increased al-Qaeda activity on the Golan frontier has some Israelis nostalgic for the days of Assad.

A prison holding hundreds of jihadists has become fruitful recruiting ground for ISIS, and a potential prisoner swap could eventually lead to ex-inmates taking leadership roles in the group.

In Washington, foreign policy crises are covered as breaking news, but in reality, they develop over years and require just as long to resolve.

In light of issues such as Riyadh's well-known antipathy toward democratic agendas, Washington should take its cue from what the Saudis signal they are willing and politically able to do.

Hesitance among U.S. regional allies and short-term expediency are no excuse to align with the regimes in Iran and Syria.

Much has been made of President Barack Obama's recent admission that he didn't "have a strategy yet" on Syria. With the president scheduled to address the nation Wednesday night about the Islamic State insurgency, the White House appears to be seeking to quash the debate about whether Mr. Obama's risk-averse

The Washington Institute's executive director addressed the ICT’s 14th International Conference on Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Israel.

Despite the loss of a close ally in outgoing prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) appears ready to move on by offering substantial military support to his successor in Baghdad.

On August 10, Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued his prolific electoral run by collecting almost 52 percent of the vote in Turkey's presidential poll, easily besting his chief rival, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, who represented the left-right CHP/MHP coalition. A large part of Erdogan's success lay in peeling away conservative MHP voters through

Despite the authoritarian impulses of Turkey's long-governing AKP, the country's civil society has become too diverse for President Erdogan or any other single leader to control entirely.

To defeat the jihadist group and address the instability it has caused, the United States will need to follow up on its good first steps in Iraq and get serious about Syria.

President Obama is right that diplomacy should be America's lead option. But diplomacy needs help, be it military or economic

Washington Institute research explains the complexities of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

In addition to hitting ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the United States should target the Assad regime's military infrastructure to ensure that Damascus cannot take advantage of the situation.

Ankara's efforts to become a regional power player have backfired. It's time to renew old partnerships instead.

Today's draft agreement will have to withstand domestic and foreign pressure on Amman.

Amman appears committed to difficult economic reforms, but militant Islamists -- and controversial palace initiatives -- continue to challenge the kingdom's stability.

Since containment is no longer a viable option, Washington must build a regional coalition of the willing to roll back the terrorist group.

With Middle East players from North Africa through the Gulf focused on the twin challenges of radical Sunni jihadism and the fear of Iranian expansionism, the Israel-Hamas war was more a symptom than a trigger of regional developments. Still, repercussions from the fighting, the on-again/off-again ceasefires, and the political alignments