Policy Analysis

On January 7, 1998, Iran's President Khatemi told America-via CNN-that terrorism "should be condemned . . . and we condemn every form of it in the world." Khatemi also "denied categorically" reports that Iranian officials abroad regularly engage in acts of surveillance against Americans. These are encouraging words. However, a

UNSCOM has been able to establish that in the second half of 1986, Iraq began work on at least fifteen different missile systems, in hopes of finding a weapon that would allow them to put pressure on Iran to end the war. Iraq has admitted to all fifteen of these

Saddam Husayn's speech last Saturday marking the anniversary of Operation Desert Storm confirmed that the current impasse is no ordinary Iraq crisis. Saddam gave the Security Council until May 20 to lift sanctions on Iraq or he would cease cooperation with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). Saddam's speech also

The Oslo accord is designed to divide the Israeli-Palestinian peace process into as many sub-phases as possible. Based on former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's concept of incrementalism, this cautious approach includes a review of the other side's compliance with past obligations before moving to the next sub-phase. Consequently, Israeli Prime

Culminating five years of formal discussions designed to find an effective way to combat terrorism, the Council of Arab Interior Ministers (CAIM) decided January 5 to adopt an all-Arab antiterrorism accord, pending approval of the Arab justice ministers next April. Coming in the wake of recent massacres in Algeria and

Iranian President Mohammad Khatemi's January 7 interview on CNN was long on history but short on policy indicatives. The most striking aspect of was that he gave it, not what he said. Khatemi is staking his prestige on foreign policy, which is surprising from a man whose entire career and

The Israeli-Turkish-U.S. trilateral search-and-rescue exercise taking place this week near Israel's Mediterranean coast highlights the thickening network of ties between Washington's two major non-Arab, Middle Eastern allies. A plus for U.S. interests in the region, Israeli-Turkish relations are watched with growing unease in Damascus, Baghdad, and Tehran, on the one

As a city filled with "sacred space," Jerusalem poses several problems for policymakers seeking a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Any solution to the challenge of finding an agreed upon settlement must promise to protect the holy places--the "sacred space" of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this Policy Paper

Born a small, beleaguered state, outnumbered and surrounded by enemies committed to its destruction, Israel early in its history formulated a distinctive set of principles for its basic defense policy. To outside observers, Israel's approach became emblematic of, indeed, in some respects indistinguishable from its national character. Throughout the quarter-century

Bill Clinton, the first post Cold War president, may be joining a select Cold War club. Since World War II, several presidents have had foreign policy axioms associated with their names: the Truman Doctrine, which launched containment; the Carter Doctrine, declaring the Persian Gulf a vital interest: the Reagan Doctrine

Redeployments and Final Status: In recent weeks, the main focus of the peace process has been on the question of "further redeployments" of Israeli troops in the West Bank, as called for under the Oslo Accords. However, the redeployments—or "strokes," as they are known in Hebrew—are in reality a side

On the heels of the European Union's dismissal of Turkey's membership bid, Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz meets President Clinton at the White House tomorrow at a potentially fateful time for Turkey's relations with the West. Ultimately, Euro-Turkish relations need to be strengthened if Turkey is to be fully integrated

Washington must face the problem that both the large powers in the Persian Gulf-Iran and Iraq-have regimes unwilling to live in peace with their neighbors or the United States. Several approaches to these vexatious regimes tried by the West have been unsuccessful. Both the reliance on a regional power to

When Mohammed Khatemi was unexpectedly elected president in May 1997, he was called in Iran "Ayatollah Gorbachev," in the expectation the system could fall apart if it opened up. While it is too early too ascertain whether Khatemi's welcome rhetoric is matched by substantive changes in Iranian behavior, his recent

For the past three decades, Turkey's political establishment has equated success in its quest for full acceptance as a Western state with admission to the European Union (EU)-a goal likely to be dealt a severe, if not crippling, blow at an historic EU summit that starts tomorrow. The EU's implicit

While the Tehran Islamic summit and the new Israeli spy scandal have garnered the Middle East headlines this week, important developments have taken place in Jordan that both suggest the Israeli-Palestinian peace process may be poised for progress and point to the re-engagement of a critical player—King Hussein. Diplomatic context

Two widespread analyses have accompanied this morning's opening of the eighth summit conference of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The first is that the turnout-the "full house," as one Iranian newspaper put it-demonstrates the failure of the U.S. effort to isolate Iran. The second is that the showing

British policy toward the Middle East has assumed greater relevance in the international arena due to the growing relationship between Washington and the new Blair administration as well as the British accession to the European Union (EU) presidency in January 1998. Stagnation in the Peace Process. Politicians, diplomats, and all

The mood in post-Erbakan Turkey is one of calm after a storm. For a comprehensive understanding of Turkey's problems, a critical, non-ideological assessment of the pro-Islamist Refah (Welfare) Party is needed. Despite its existence since 1969, Refah truly emerged as a political force only in 1995. Receiving some 21 percent

In the Middle East, money talks -- but not as loudly as politics. That's the lesson to be learned from the Middle East/North Africa economic summit, which concluded late last month in Doha, Qatar, under the shadow of the Iraq crisis. For Washington, the two events are connected, with the