Policy Analysis

After more than a week of negotiations in Shepherdstown, W.Va., the "working draft" of the Syria-Israel peace treaty reported in yesterday's Ha'aretz notes only one area of seemingly irreconcilable difference between the two parties--over the scope of the demilitarized zone separating the two sides. As currently worded, the text neither

A good indicator of Russia's role in the Middle East is that Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak had no plans to return to Israel to be present for Boris Yeltsin's visit there even before Yeltsin stepped down as Russian president. The Israeli leader preferred to remain in the United States

Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi arrived in London on Sunday to start a new initiative to break Iran further out of isolation. Europe has sought to engage Iran as the best way to promote Iranian moderation and reform. With Iran's parliamentary elections approaching next month, there will almost certainly be

RAGHIDA DERGHAM Peace for Syria is not a tactical move. Pursuing a breakthrough is now declared Syrian policy, and Damascus does not back down from its declared policy. Today, Syria is giving the logic of negotiation precedence over the logic of resistance in its quest to liberate the Golan Heights

While Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara are talking peace at Shepherdstown, the fighting in south Lebanon still goes on. Last time the two leaders met in Washington in December, the party was almost spoiled after a stray shell fired by South Lebanese Army (SLA)

With Syrian-Israeli peace talks underway in Shepherdstown, W.Va., media attention has focused on the shape of a possible peace agreement and the potential for U.S. financial assistance to the parties. Virtually no attention, however, has been paid to the principal legal obstacle in the way of U.S. aid to one

The millennial year opened on a high note for U.S. diplomacy, with Syria-Israel peace talks convening yesterday in Shepherdstown, W.Va. Unlike the other two participants, however, Washington has so far not indicated what it wants from these negotiations or what it is willing to pay to get it. Although Washington

After a half-decade in which the Balkans, Central Africa, and East Asia were the hottest spots on the globe, the Middle East--including North Africa--is likely to assert itself over the next five years as a zone of turbulence. Some of the turmoil will be fueled by the irredentism left over

A landmark study that offers clear and understandable answers to fundamental questions about the most complex facets of the Iranian regime, probing the lines between hardliners and reformers, revolutionary and national interests, theocracy and electoral politics, and more.

Although Saudi Arabia is popularly perceived as the most religious of Arab countries, the question of who in the kingdom determines its dominant Islamic discourse has been the subject of controversy since the state's founding. The formation of Saudi Arabia in the early twentieth century involved the unique harnessing of

Syrian foreign minister Faruq al-Shara's recent announcement that Damascus and Beirut will sign peace treaties with Israel together is not surprising, considering Syria's hegemony in Lebanon. But while Israel, Syria, and the United States have expressed guarded optimism about the latest resumption of peace talks, Lebanon has been more reserved

On December 22, Sudanese president Umar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir met Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Bashir's first visit there in six years. The day before, he met the leaders of four other Sudanese neighbors (Libya, Eritrea, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo) in Tripoli, Libya. These visits

Iran--Syria's closest ally since the fall of the Soviet Union--has perhaps the most to fear from the prospect of Syria-Israel peace. Indeed, Tehran seems to have been caught off guard by Syrian president Hafiz al-Asad's decision to reenter negotiations, and Tehran is accordingly viewing with great concern Syria's apparent readiness

In the past ten days, Libyan leader Mu‘ammar Qadhafi has made progress in his efforts to achieve international respectability. After fifteen years, a British ambassador, Richard Dalton, arrived in Tripoli pledging to help Libya return to the “mainstream of the international community.” And Colonel Qadhafi’s status as mediator of thorny

When Syrians, Americans, and Israelis sat down in Washington this week, they may as well have kept an empty chair for a fourth key player in this equation--Turkey. Turkish water, in particular, will likely be needed to facilitate a Syrian-Israeli deal, but history suggests that Ankara will not provide that

On December 8, 1999, Wilfried Buchta—author of the forthcoming book Who Rules Iran?, to be published by The Washington Institute in conjunction with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation—addressed the Institute’s Special Policy Forum. The following is a rapporteur’s summary of his remarks. The Iranian revolution has endured years of internal turmoil

As Syria and Israel begin negotiations in Washington today, conflict and violence again flared in southern Lebanon, where large-scale raids by Hizballah against twenty Israeli and South Lebanon Army (SLA) posts prompted Israeli retaliatory air strikes. Given that one of Israel’s chief goals in the peace talks is the pacification

The European Unions (EU) naming of Turkey as a full-fledged candidate for membership is of historic significance. The first-ever Muslim-majority candidate, Turkey differs significantly from current EU member-states not only in religion, but also in culture, history, and the wide range of regional security threats it faces. U.S. diplomacy was