العراق

On November 5, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and deputy chief of military staff Gen. Ergin Saygun visited President Bush in Washington to discuss the growing threat posed by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The composition of the Turkish delegation was symbolically important and demonstrates a new political stability

On November 5, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet US President George W. Bush to discuss likely action against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The recent spike in terror attacks on Turkey by the PKK from northern Iraq and subsequent Turkish shelling have heightened expectations that Turkey could

A map of PKK positions in the eastern portion of northern Iraq. Copyright 2007 The Washington Institute

On October 21, 2007, J.D. Crouch and Antony Blinken addressed The Washington Institute's Weinberg Founders Conference. Mr. Crouch formerly served as assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor. Mr. Blinken is a majority staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and senior foreign policy advisor to the

Engagement activities -- overt interactions between coalition military and foreign civilian personnel for the purpose of obtaining information, influencing behavior, or building an indigenous base of support for coalition objectives -- have played a central role in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). They have involved efforts to reach out to village

President Bush's commitment to staying the course in Iraq remains as strong as ever. In his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars last week, he invoked the ideological struggles of the past to explain why we must prevail in the current conflict. While many have questioned his analogies to

Among the many initiatives for training the Iraqi military, one little-publicized but crucial effort has been the U.S. Air Force's ongoing series of comprehensive advisory missions. Central Command's latest plan to develop Iraqi airpower calls for dramatic increases in the number of Iraqi Air Force personnel and aircraft, as well

On June 8, a day after reports that Turkish troops had crossed into northern Iraq to pursue members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Iranian aircraft bombed the camps of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), also in northern Iraq. PJAK, which operates in the mountains of northern

The May 28 meeting between the U.S. and Iranian ambassadors to Iraq was mostly notable for its length -- four hours -- and the lack of anything to show for all that time together. And the very next day, Iran announced that three detained Iranian Americans visiting their homeland, including