Policy Analysis

For years, we were told that the “root cause” of the Middle East’s problems was the Israeli occupation of Arab lands—the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and southern Lebanon. Peace would come to the Middle East, according to this view, only when Israel finally

Conspiracy is like oxygen in the Middle East. Everyone breathes it. And it’s a mode of thought suited to understanding Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel. The attacks, after all, represented a sudden shift in the group’s thinking. In the six years following Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, the Shia militants didn’t cross

In the Greater Middle East, the United States is currently engaged in three wars: in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and against al-Qaeda and its affiliate organizations. As serious as those conflicts are, they do not constitute the sum of challenges facing America in the region. Indeed, two additional challenges -- from

On July 13, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (BTC) was formally opened, connecting the Caspian oil basin with the Mediterranean and providing a more direct route to Western markets. The pipeline also represents one of several developments that may propel Turkey into a central role in the global energy industry. To

The critical question of whether or not the current conflict in Lebanon will escalate to a broader regional war is being answered in two overly simple ways. One such analysis is that this is a “meltdown” with escalating violence and mounting pressures for further escalation. A second, equally simplistic view

Iran thumbs its nose at Western diplomats and continues nuclear enrichment. Hamas’s chief, speaking from Damascus, boasts about kidnapping an Israeli soldier. Hezbollah launches a cross-border raid, prompting Israeli retaliation in Beirut and a return volley of rockets on northern Israel. Just another bleak week in the hopeless Middle East

On Wednesday, an international conference will open in Italy to discuss the state of Lebanon and explore potential formulas for an Israeli-Hizballah ceasefire. Current conditions make an immediate ceasefire unlikely, but should changing events make a ceasefire possible, one of the first priorities for the Bush administration and the international

As diplomacy to halt the violence in Lebanon slowly gathers momentum, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has endorsed the idea of an international “stabilization force” to keep the peace, seconding proposals previously put forward by UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, British prime minister Tony Blair, and European Union foreign policy envoy

Americans and Europeans fighting the global war against al-Qaida can learn a vital lesson from Israel’s two-front war against Hezbollah and Hamas: Moderation doesn’t moderate the terrorists. Radical Islamist groups bent on the destruction of Israel have targeted Israeli civilians for nearly 20 years. Throughout that time, Israel has borne

The current crisis in Lebanon has galvanized world attention because it is generally understood that this is not a local conflict, but rather one that represents Iran’s bid to raise the stakes in the Middle East. The fact that several countries are planning to convene next week in Rome to

In a July 17 article in Kayhan, a newspaper sponsored by Iran’s supreme leader, editor Hossein Shariatmadari wrote, “The Muslim nations should not let the engagement [with Israel] remain in its limited regional boundaries. The Zionists are scatted in many parts of the world and their identification is not that

On July 17, 2006, Brig. Gen. Michael Herzog and Patrick Clawson addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. General Herzog, an active officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), is a visiting military fellow at The Washington Institute. General Herzog recently published Iranian Public Opinion on the Nuclear Program: A

Westerners believe Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad to be popular in Iran, in no small part because of his strong support for Iran’s nuclear program. However, there is much evidence to the contrary. There is limited information available with which to form a judgment about the popularity of any politician or

This article originally appeared as a chapter in the book The Last Arab-Israeli Battlefield? Implications of an Israeli Withdrawal from Lebanon (Washington Institute, 2000). John Hillen is currently assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs. When he wrote this essay, he was serving on the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st

The United States has made it clear that it is providing Israel with the requisite political breathing space to obtain its military objectives in Lebanon. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has delayed her mediation mission, and President Bush has not pressed Israel to end its military operations at this

On July 19, 2006, Brig. Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon, David Schenker, and Dennis Ross addressed The Washington Institute’s Special Policy Forum. General Yaalon, a distinguished military fellow at the Institute, is the former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff. Mr. Schenker, a senior fellow in Arab politics at the

On July 10, 2006, Lt. Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon, David Makovsky and Dennis Ross addressed The Washington Institute’s Special Policy Forum. General Yaalon, a distinguished military fellow at the Institute, is the former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff. Mr. Makovsky, senior fellow and director of The Washington Institute’s

Having come into existence by virtue of Iranian military and financial patronage, Hizballah has used massive Iranian support to transform itself from a purely military group into an armed political party that has had an enduring impact on Lebanese political life and served as an outpost of Islamic fundamentalism in

As someone who helped to negotiate an end to the Israeli-Hezbollah battles in 1993 and ‘96, when Katyusha rockets forced the public in northern Israel into bomb shelters and the Israeli military destroyed Lebanese infrastructure and forced Lebanese to flee the south, I can say that the Lebanese crisis is

In 1975, Lebanese President Suleiman Franjieh warned Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat that failure to discipline Palestinian radicals in the southern outskirts of Beirut would exploit Lebanon’s hospitality and plunge the country into civil war. These were famous last words. Within months, a civil war broke out that engulfed