Policy Analysis

The first snows are arriving in New Hampshire, but the action for the first of the US presidential primaries is still being played out elsewhere. American voters and news junkies in the rest of the world might be excused for thinking that the political battleground is Baghdad. The nightly news

Even after the extraordinary U.S.-British military display of last spring, rogue states and terrorists continue to threaten U.S. national security. While this observation may seem prosaic, the White House predicted that victory in Iraq would convince our adversaries to fall into line, i.e., moderate their ways to avoid becoming the

By deploying F-15 strike aircraft to a northwestern airbase in March 2003 and holding large combined-arms exercises near the Gulf of Aqaba in mid-October, Saudi Arabia has indicated its desire to act more freely in asserting its territorial sovereignty vis-à-vis Israel. These actions -- which Washington and Riyadh might previously

Testimony before the House Committee on Financial Services, Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology Two important considerations in judging U.S. reaction to World Bank lending to Iran are: how important is World Bank lending be to Iran, and how would lending to Iran fit with World

The identity of the state of Israel is based on two ideas: democracy and the existence of a safe home for the Jewish people. Yet, because of Israel's pressing security concerns over the past fifty-five years, the debate about how to reconcile these two ideas has never really begun. In

The roadside bomb that killed four Americans recently had to have been imported into the Gaza Strip from someplace. Odds are, it came from underground tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Countless other weapons used in terrorist attacks against Israelis in recent years have also arrived via those same

U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs William Burns visited Algeria on October 25-26, just days after a new Algerian terrorist organization was added to the Treasury Department's list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT). The visit also came amid reports that several Algerian groups with al-Qaeda ties

EDWARD MORSE The effects of the 1973 oil embargo by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) can still be felt. Although the United States has successfully curtailed OPEC's ability to use oil as a weapon or as leverage for political blackmail, the resource remains a viable instrument of

During the first half of 2001, a new, fortified fence was constructed in the Gaza Strip, and since that time not a single Palestinian suicide bomber has infiltrated Israel from Gaza. Previously, in December 2000, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had decided to create a 60-square-kilometer security buffer zone around

On October 22, 2003, Matthew Levitt, The Washington Institute's senior fellow in terrorism studies, testified before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. The following is an edited version of his remarks. Read a full transcript. Constricting the Operating Environment No counterterrorism effort, however extensive, will put an

Testimony before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs I. Introduction: Networks and Relationships Pundits and politicians alike tend to think of the war on terror against al-Qaeda as a completely disparate phenomenon from the battle against other terrorist groups. This is, in part, a logical supposition as

This PolicyWatch is the third in a three-part series written to coincide with the Madrid Donors Conference on Iraq, which begins on October 24, 2003. Read Part I and Part II (both by Michael Knights). Although economics is not the driving force behind Iraqi resistance to the U.S.-led coalition, restoring

The October 21 deal between Iran and the European trio of Britain, France, and Germany has the potential to significantly reduce the risk of Iran producing a nuclear weapon from highly enriched uranium (HEU)—assuming the accord is implemented strictly and on a tight timetable. Yet, HEU is only one of

This PolicyWatch is the second in a three-part series written to coincide with the Madrid Donors Conference on Iraq, which begins on October 24, 2003. Read Part I (also by Knights) and Part III (by Patrick Clawson). Expanding the size of Iraqi government security forces will be key to reducing

This PolicyWatch is the first in a three-part series written to coincide with the Madrid Donors Conference on Iraq, which begins on October 24, 2003. Read Part II (also by Knights) and Part III (by Patrick Clawson). A recent series of violent riots has underlined the close relationship between employment

On September 6, the European Union finally abandoned the sophomoric position that the social and political wings of Hamas are somehow distinct from the group's military wing, banning not only the Izz al Dinn al Qassam Brigades but Hamas overall. This should have made it harder for Hamas to raise

Despite its billing as an alternative blueprint for Middle East peace, the draft Geneva Accord for a permanent status agreementproduced by an Israeli opposition parliamentarian and a Palestinian confidant of Yasir Arafatis not primarily a bilateral Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Rather, its main innovation is the comprehensive and, in some cases

Just as the self-proclaimed new historians burst onto the scene in the late 1980s, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research's (PSR) July 2003 poll purported to upend the conventional understanding of the Palestinian refugee problem. The PSR poll, widely covered in the international media, surveyed 4,506 refugees living

The bombing of a U.S. convoy in Gaza on Wednesday, which killed three American contract employees of the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv and injured a U.S. diplomat, was neither unprecedented nor unexpected. Indeed, U.S. embassy employees narrowly escaped injury in a similar attack last June, when unknown assailants detonated

Shi'i leader Muqtada al-Sadr, one of the most dangerous men in Iraq, has moved to the brink of a direct and violent confrontation with the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and U.S. forces. This is neither an accident nor a surprise. He has prepared for this eventuality almost from the beginning