Policy Analysis

Few understand why the Taliban are so insistent on harbouring a man involved in the deaths of thousands over the past decade. After all, the Taliban complain frequently of their international isolation - only Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and the breakaway Chechen government recognise them. One CNN

One week after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, world attention is focusing on reprisals against Afghanistan, whose Taliban regime has been sheltering not only Osama bin Laden and his al-Qa'ida organization, but also a myriad of other terrorist groups. While the war against terrorism announced

Given the scope of last week's terrorist attacks and the shadowy nature of the perpetrators, the White House has pledged that U.S. retaliation will be qualitatively different from the past -- targeting states as well as organizations, crafting a wide international coalition, employing an array of military, political, and cultural

Three days after the horrific attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, investigators are concentrating on al-Qaida, the terrorist network of Saudi financier Osama bin Laden. But as President Bush warned, focusing on the perpetrators must not detract from focusing on those that make his operation possible. The

Recent events should give Washington the opportunity to pursue the Ibrahim case more vigorously.

Yesterday's killing of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) chief Abu Ali Mustafa by Israel, and the State Department's condemnation of this act, have refocused attention on Israel's use of "targeted killings" as part of its counterterror policy. Since the start of the "al-Aqsa intifada," Israeli forces have

The arraignment Friday of Brian Regan, an employee of the National Reconnaissance Office, on charges of espionage for Libya, once more places Colonel Mu'ammar Qaddafi's domain on the front pages. The secrets sold to Libya may have included information about American satellite over-flights which have in the past been able

President Bush called Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to express his condolences for the innocent Israelis killed in Hamas' latest suicide bombing spree. But Sharon could have given his own condolences to Bush, since one of the victims was an American. Given the current trend of Palestinian terrorism and rhetoric

After throwing away Palestinian statehood, 98 percent of the West Bank, a chunk of Jerusalem, and peace in the Middle East, Yasir Arafat still wants to cloak himself in the mantle of peacemaker. A return to calm would be possible, Arafat tells anyone who will listen, if only international monitors

The World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance is to begin in Durban, South Africa on August 31, 2001. It follows the trend of increased concern for human rights over the last several years, seen in new approaches to international humanitarian law. This trend has witnessed the

In the aftermath of the horrific Hamas suicide bombing of a Jerusalem pizzeria on August 9, President Bush once again called on Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Yasir Arafat to take the necessary steps to end the violence. Inside the PA, however, there is little discussion about a cessation of violence

On August 8, 2001, Dennis Ross, counselor and distinguished fellow at The Washington Institute and former special Middle East coordinator in the Clinton administration, addressed queries posed by Margaret Warner and Jim Hoagland during a special question-and-answer session. The following are excerpts from the discussion. Read a full transcript. On

Imagine the New York Times covering the sinking of the Titanic with only a passing reference to the iceberg. Absurd? Not really. On July 26 the nation's newspaper of record devoted 5,681 words to a retrospective by Jerusalem bureau chief Deborah Sontag titled "Quest for Mideast Peace: How and Why

On May 18, the day after Great Britain proposed lifting United Nations sanctions on all civilian goods in Iraq, a taciturn Iraqi farmer asked me: "Why does the West talk about Saddam's war crimes on one day, but reward him the next?" Such is the perception of ordinary Iraqis, who

In 1981, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was near completion of a nuclear reactor in Osirak capable of producing nuclear weapons. Shortly before the reactor began operation, Israeli warplanes destroyed it in a raid roundly condemned throughout Europe and the United States. A decade later, in 1991, Hussein invaded Kuwait, and

A nuclear breakout by Iraq or Iran could have a number of direct and indirect effects on the region: First, a nuclear breakout by either will cause the United States to be much more careful in its dealings with that state, particularly when it comes to considering military action. America's

Sanctions on Iraq are now 11 years old, and U.S. policy is going nowhere fast. The State Department has proposed to revise sanctions to try to undermine Saddam Hussein's propaganda, but the approach is little more than appeasement. At least that's how Iraqis described it during my recent nine-month visit

Tuesday's U.S.-British air strikes against Iraq once again raise the question of why much of the international community continues to treat Saddam Hussein with kid gloves. When Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic began his campaign of ethnic cleansing in 1992, after all, Europe did not respond by expanding trade with Serbia

The horrific suicide terror bombing today, during lunchtime in the heart of downtown Jerusalem, cannot merely be dismissed as an attack by a deranged fanatic. In the immediate aftermath of the suicide bombing, Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Abdullah Shalah immediately went on the popular Arab satellite television station al-Jazeera defending

As U.S. policymakers review options for national missile defense and ways to reshape the military to meet future threats, nuclear proliferation -- particularly in the Middle East -- looms large as one of the most critical future challenges facing the United States. In the coming years, it is conceivable, if