Policy Analysis

Threats by Tehran to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz may be bluster, but they also represent a bigger policy challenge to the United States.

Egypt's election procedures have improved much, but some serious issues remain, though the U.S. government can only have modest influence regarding these matters.

The presence of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Europe is fast becoming a prism through which the Turks view their ties with Europe, especially in Germany.

The West Bank has prospered more than Gaza since the 2007 split between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and not just because of foreign aid.

Washington and its allies can still prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons through nonmilitary means.

The conflict in Syria that some expected to simmer down is in fact boiling, and the Arab League delegation must be enhanced accordingly.

Accumulation of religious capital in the hands of the government mutually influences the nature of the state and the clerical establishment and will continue to do so in Iran's uncertain future.

Far from sleepwalking into war with Iran, Israelis have their eyes wide open on the nuclear threat and expect others to do the same.

While the world around it goes through economic and political convulsions, Turkey continues to expand its economic reach well beyond Europe and the Middle East.

Turkey, the Syrian opposition, and Washington should encourage Moscow to reconsider its growing support for the regime's brutal repression.

A new gas field in the eastern Mediterranean will likely confirm the region's huge new energy potential but could lead to a diplomatic crisis between Cyprus and Turkey.

An interview by Bernard Gwertzman, CFR.org Amid mounting violence that has killed more than five thousand in Syria, it is "almost inevitable" the regime of President Bashar al-Assad will collapse, says Dennis Ross, a former senior Middle East adviser to President Obama. "When a regime is entirely dependent on coercion

In responding to the political crisis in Iraq, Washington should encourage constitutional processes and respect for political and human rights rather than any particular outcome.

On November 30, 2011, Mr. Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of Tunisia's an-Nahda movement, visited the offices of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy to address a seminar of the Institute's senior research staff and several select, invited guests. This was an on-the-record session, with a tape recorder sitting in the

Much of the rhetoric surrounding the Iranian nuclear impasse has been marked by Tehran's staunch refusal to budge and pessimism among Western analysts that increasingly strong diplomatic and economic measures will ever have their desired effect. Yet several avenues for progress have opened up amid an environment of incrementally effective

Egypt's liberals should be focused on the economic long game, because whichever party delivers prosperity to Egyptians will rule.

The death of Kim Jong-il provides an opportunity for Washington to organize a show of disapproval for North Korea's nuclear and missile proliferation.

Egypt's liberals have lost control of their revolution.

In light of its experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington should be able to do more to facilitate the transition in Libya.

The past two-and-a-half years have witnessed a string of failed efforts to launch substantive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and, more recently, heated controversy surrounding President Obama's baseline formula for compromise. This sad story reflects, among other things, the deep divide between the two sides on the supposedly "easier" issues of territory and