Policy Analysis

With no prospects for a political solution to the Syrian crisis, the Turkish government's insistence on maintaining its previous policies in northern Syria and its usurpation of the Syrian people's decision-making warns of dire consequences for an already fragile relationship.

Three counterterrorism experts and former officials discuss a powerful new interactive tool and its implications for mobilizing international pressure on Iran and its proxies.

Even with U.S. intercession, the assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran could harden Ankara’s stance against Israel and spur a fatal cycle of diplomatic and economic retaliation.

The small but significant step could facilitate U.S. technology transfers to the kingdom, said to be a key element in any potential Israeli-Saudi normalization deal—but proliferation concerns persist.

Reaching a Gaza ceasefire and Israeli-Saudi normalization deal will require intense, well-coordinated diplomatic efforts in a condensed timeline, but the administration can do it with help from the “Arab Quint.”

A mechanism for diverting Iraqi government oil to militias through non-operational factories was recently exposed, creating a panic shutdown of asphalt plants run by Iran-backed terrorists.

In this chapter from the Jihadist Governance and Statecraft compilation, Aaron Y. Zelin explores how Afghanistan's one-time insurgents are making greater use of key instruments of state.

Access this powerful tool, which maps over forty-five years of Iranian clandestine operations around the globe.

A senior missile specialist from Yemen was killed alongside Iraqi members of Kataib Hezbollah, underlining the government's cooperation with domestic and foreign terrorist groups.

The 30,000-strong militia has ground forces massed along the frontier, preventing evacuated Israelis from returning home and increasing the risk of a war that both sides would rather postpone for now.

In this chapter from the Jihadist Governance and Statecraft compilation, Mattew Levitt examines how Hezbollah exercises authority from outside the halls of formal state power.

In this chapter from the Jihadist Governance and Statecraft compilation, Devorah Margolin explores how Hamas has balanced the contradictions between the demands of governance and of continued terrorist operations.

In this chapter from the Jihadist Governance and Statecraft compilation, Michael Knights explores the scope and nature of jihadist governance in Iraq.

The strikes are not yet numerous enough to form a definitive pattern, but they probably reflect deep militia divisions over whether to renew anti-coalition attacks in earnest amid the Gaza war.

The fall (for now) of a senior Turkmen protege of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis is a reminder that fortunes, favor, and factions are always shifting within the Iran-backed "resistance" scene.

Far from a normal educational institution, al-Mustafa is the Iraqi branch of a U.S.-sanctioned Iranian entity that seeks to groom the next generation of Iraqi clerics, missionaries, pro-Iran political representatives, and pro-Iran militia members.

An interactive map showing the extent to which Houthi forces, their Iranian military patrons, and other actors have been targeting vessels in regional waterways for years, including well before the Hamas-Israel war.

In recent years, members of tribes living on Kish land in Rabat have escalated their protests in response to decisions to re-allocate the land, demolish their homes, and evict them.

From rumored Houthi missile upgrades to Libyan arms deliveries by the ton, Moscow is doing all it can to empower hostile forces and undermine stability in the Middle East.

Regardless of how the group responds to Israel’s latest leadership strike, its desperation to stop the bleeding will create big diplomatic opportunities for the United States and its partners—if done right.