Policy Analysis

U.S. president Bill Clinton and Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak will lead their respective national delegations at this week’s historic set of Syria-Israel peace talks, but Syrian president Hafiz al-Asad is sending his foreign minister in his stead. By keeping himself at one remove from the talks, Asad retains certain

In the next few days, the United Nations (UN) Security Council will have to decide whether to approve a new inspections regime for Iraqs weapons of mass destruction (WMD). For six months, the Council members have been debating this matter in closed meetings. The impetus to act now comes from

THOMAS FRIEDMAN International Context: Syria's position must be viewed within the system of globalization that has replaced the previous Cold War order. The rules of the globalization system are qualitatively different from those of the Cold War and will influence the politics and economics of all states. Whereas the Cold

Spurned two years ago, a wary Turkey again hopes to be designated a candidate for membership in the European Union (EU) when the EU summit meets in Helsinki December 10-11. That this prospect is on the brink of realization is a tribute to many factors, but perhaps most of all

On December 2, 1999, Antony Blinken, special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council, delivered The Washington Institute's Third Annual Turgut Ozal Memorial Lecture. The following are excerpts from his presentation. Read a full transcript. "What seems an obvious point today was

Reliance on air power has become the defining characteristic of the "American Way of War" in the post-Cold War world of the 1990s. Prior to the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, U.S. Air Force weapons and tactics were optimized for an air war in Central Europe, taking into

On December 1, Mu'awyeh Al-Masri, a Palestinian legislator from Nablus, was shot in the leg by a group of masked men in broad daylight. This mafia-style "kneecapping" was the culmination of several days of arrests and protests in the Palestinian Authority (PA) which followed the distribution of a leaflet accusing

The November 18 signing of a pipeline accord in the Turkish port city of Istanbul, in the presence of President Clinton, gives further momentum to the oil export link project between Baku, the capital of the Caspian littoral state of Azerbaijan, and Ceyhan, on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. Another piece of

Examines the consequences of the lack of an effective system for monitoring and tracking students, exchange visitors, and scholars from terrorism-supporting countries, and evaluates U.S. government efforts to address this problem. Updates Hillary Mann's 1997 Policy Focus, Open Admissions: U.S. Policy toward Students from Terrorism-Supporting Countries in the Middle East.

Barak, Rabin, and Peace Strategy: Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, like the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, believes that Israel's peace strategy should be based on strategic, "old Middle East" assumptions, rather than those of the idealized "new Middle East" propounded by Shimon Peres. As foreign minister and then prime

ROBERT SATLOFF General Observations Meetings with the four leaders--Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, Jordan's King Abdullah II, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Yasir Arafat--underscore the vitality of regional leadership. All seemed healthy, engaged, self-assured, and in command. Barak is clearly a man with a mission, convinced

President Clinton's trip to Turkey for the November 18-19 OSCE summit will be historic for U.S.-Turkish relations. The November 15-17 bilateral portion of the trip (perhaps now in doubt following another shocking earthquake in Turkey today) will mark only the third visit by a U.S. president to Turkey and the

Turkey and Israel inhabit a region troubled by security concerns that include religious fundamentalism, terrorism, illicit trafficking of arms and drugs, transfer of weapons of mass destruction, proliferation of nuclear weapons, and mass movements of refugees. These two states thus have overlapping security interests as well as political and economic

On October 24, 1999, Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel’s minister of public security, delivered the closing keynote address at The Washington Institute’s Inaugural Weinberg Founders Conference. The following is a rapporteur’s summary of his remarks. Read a full transcript. A conceptual gap exists between the foreign policies of former Israeli prime minister

Shaykh Mohammed Mohammed Ali: Our strategy is to end the dictatorship of Saddam Husayn; we intend to rebuild our country democratically. Inside Iraq there is real discontent, and in the South, there is real resistance. Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein: No secret formula exists for bringing down the regime. It could

On October 22, 1999, Vice President Al Gore delivered the keynote address to The Washington Institute's Inaugural Weinberg Founders Conference. The following are excerpts from his speech. Read a full transcript. "Our engagement in the world has a huge impact on the peace and prosperity of the Middle East and

I was on a bicycle trip with my wife in the faraway Canadian Rockies in July 1994 when our guide received a call on an ancient two-way radio from my office in Washington. Jordan and Israel had reached a deal, I was told, and an agreement was soon to be

On October 12, 1999, Ambassador Michael Sheehan, coordinator for counterterrorism at the Department of State, addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. The following are excerpts from his prepared speech. Read a full transcript. The Changing Character of Middle Eastern Terrorism "The international terrorism by Middle Eastern groups that plagued

The new Israeli government that was formed in Jerusalem in early July has a fundamentally different foreign policy than that defended by Netanyahu. It is not only a difference of nuances or tactics; it is, I believe, a conceptual gap that exists between the visions of the governments of Netanyahu

This is a critical juncture for the Middle East and for U.S. foreign policy, and vigorous American engagement in the world is key. Our engagement has a huge impact on the peace and prosperity of the Middle East, and a huge impact on every part of the world. Not everyone