Policy Analysis

A significant loophole in U.S. immigration and national security policy allows students from terrorist-sponsoring countries in the Middle East-Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria-to enter the United States to study subjects that can potentially contribute to their countries' chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. While the majority of foreign students

An ongoing series of shake-ups at the highest levels of the Iranian military and intelligence communities suggest that Iran's new President, Hojjat-ol Islam Mohammed Khatami, may be moving to exert control over the hardline defense establishment. In recent days he has reshuffled the leadership in the Defense Ministry, the Intelligence

Russia and Turkey are partners as well as rivals. Bilateral trade (official and unofficial) amounts to $14 billion. Turkey purchases major quantities of natural gas from Russia. There are 30,000 Turkish workers and some $6 billion invested by the Turkish construction sector in Russia. There is also considerable tourism in

This past weekend, Vice President Gore and the President's special envoy on Russian-Iranian proliferation issues, Ambassador Frank Wisner, arrived in Moscow to meet with Russian Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin and other senior officials. Topping the agenda was a subject of growing concern for U.S. policymakers: Russia's deepening involvement in the proliferation

What I would like to do rather than brief on Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's trip to the Middle East, from which we have just returned, on what she did accomplish and what she did not, is share six observations about where we are and where we may be going

Keynote addresses by Thomas Pickering and Aaron David Miller. With Rajan Menon, Reuvan Merhav, Arnold Kanter, Paul Wolfowitz, Dominique Moisi, Michael Sturmer, and Donald Bandler.

I come before this group at a critical moment in the history of the Middle East. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's recent trip occurred on the heels of two horrific terrorist incidents amidst a fundamental crisis of confidence between Israel and the Palestinians. The situation in the Middle East had

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will find a Middle East of changing expectations and heightened vulnerabilities for United States interests. In Egypt, she will find a country that is facing potential cuts in U.S. foreign aid; Congress has given notice that economic assistance—the symbol of the U.S.-Egypt relationship—is legitimate fare

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's visit this week to the Middle East may be the last chance for the United States to avert a potential drift toward armed confrontation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), due to the latter's failure to mount a sustained effort to halt terrorism by

Note: In December 1999, the Institute published a Research Note updating this Policy Focus. Six years after revelations emerged that Saddam Hussein sent hundreds of Iraqi students abroad to study subjects that would help Baghdad develop its nuclear weapons program, the U.S. government continues to issue visas to students from

Created after Israel's 1996 Operation Grapes of Wrath, the Israel-Lebanon Monitoring Group (ILMG) was intended to help prevent another escalation to large-scale military operations. Renewed clashes in Lebanon in 1997 placed the body under considerable scrutiny. This paper provides an overview of the ILMG, its activities, and the participants' views

The course of history since the first Zionist convention 100 years ago—World War II, the Soviet breakup, and of course, the establishment of Israel—would leave the first Zionists in awe. Beginning with the founding of Israel as a homeland for Holocaust refugees and ending with the influx of Soviet Jews

Zionism was born of a mixture of desperation, imagination, and sheer coincidence. Theodore Herzl and many of his colleagues wanted only to be accepted into European society, but were rebuffed because of their religion. In the face of such discrimination, Herzl took up the cause of Zionism as his only

Hojjat ul-Islam Mohammad Khatami, who won a landslide victory in Iran's presidential elections on May 23, has scored another stunning achievement with the Iranian Majlis' (parliament) approval of all twenty-two of his cabinet ministers on August 20. The ratification of all-even the most controversial-appointments, was a substantial show of Khatami's

The current standstill in the peace process has created a situation where Lebanon's problems might be viewed as one of the most important components to the overall conclusion of the Middle East peace process. Lebanon now holds the dubious distinction of being the last "satellite" state in the world. Today

In May 1996, the peace process was not the dynamic, successful set of negotiations that many today retrospectively claim it was. In fact, the Israeli-Palestinian track was on the verge of collapse. Had it been making real progress, Binyamin Netanyahu would not have been elected prime minister. Thus, when the

President Mohammed Khatami submitted his list of nominees for the twenty-two cabinet positions to the Iranian Majlis (parliament) on August 12. The Majlis must approve every candidate, and the assembly will announce its decisions by August 20. Since the presidential election in May, many analysts have debated the extent to

The actions of former Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan caused chaos in the formulation and implementation of Turkish foreign policy, concern in the West, and a higher profile for the half-military National Security Council (and the military itself) in the policymaking process. Erbakan and Tansu Ciller, former deputy Prime Minister

The Clinton administration responded to internal and international pressure to ratchet up its role in the Arab- Israeli peace process yesterday with two important statements—a full-scale speech by Secretary of State Albright and extended comments by President Clinton at a Rose Garden press conference. The result was two key shifts

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