Policy Analysis

On November 28, 2012, Vin Weber and Gregory B. Craig addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. Mr. Weber is a former Republican congressman from Minnesota and former chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy. Mr. Craig served as White House counsel in the Obama administration and director of

Syria's al-Qaeda affiliate began as an offshoot of the same Iraqi branch with which it has now merged. How did Jabhat al-Nusra rise to prominence within the Syrian rebellion?

There's more to it than Stephen Walt would have you believe.

Now more than ever, the forces of Western liberal democracy and Islamism are arrayed against one another over Egypt's future.

By firing on a U.S. aircraft, Iran has upped the ante in the Gulf and set a bad precedent for international airspace rights worldwide.

Rather than ending Syria's civil war, the regime's fall might herald a new, more dangerous phase, and the United States should prepare accordingly.

Ankara does not want the conflict to escalate, but it cannot live with the civil war in Syria and the continued cross-border shelling it breeds, accidental or not.

Amid new chemical weapons activity in Syria, Washington must prepare for the practical implications of acting on its warnings.

Congratulations on your election victory, Mr. President. Now you have four more years to achieve the lofty goals you have set for yourself. While these are principally domestic, you have also outlined a list of herculean objectives in foreign policy – from climate change to "global zero" to a "new

Despite recent strategic shifts in the region, there is much the United States can do to postpone the return of interstate Arab-Israeli conflict.

The choice of an Australian company to take a stake in Israel's giant offshore gas field indicates strategically significant commercial and political decisions.

"In 2000, not long after Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad died and was succeeded by his son Bashar, analogies between the Assads and the Corleone family of The Godfather started to make the rounds. While details of the popular metaphor varied, the dominant focus of the comparison was on whether Bashar

The United States has a crucial role to play in defusing Baghdad's tension with the Iraqi Kurds and developing the country's longer-term oil policy -- two intertwined issues that are central to keeping Iraq united.

Why President Obama's second-term national security team can't shy away from getting involved in the world's difficult conflicts.

Egypt's hastily drafted constitution, which will likely pass an upcoming referendum, facilitates Islamist domination by co-opting the military.

Gulf states seem to view Iran as a more important challenge than domestic unrest, but Kuwait's recent troubles indicate they are no longer immune to the pressures sweeping the Arab world.

Morsi's political biography suggests that he is a hardline enforcer, not a compromiser, and his latest actions confirm it.

On November 29, Washington Institute executive director Robert Satloff testified before the House regarding the implications of the latest Gaza crisis and, more important, the new regional context in which it transpired. Given the increasing range of Hamas weapons, the targeting of Israel across three of its borders, the rise

Today's Egypt -- with its first-ever civilian president, Islamist leader Muhammad Morsi -- is a very different country from the one with which successive U.S. administrations built a strategic partnership for more than thirty years. The fundamental changes seen there since 2011 mandate an equally fundamental reassessment of the bilateral

On November 29, the anniversary of the 1947 UN General Assembly vote to partition the British Mandate of Palestine into "an Arab state and Jewish state," the assembly will vote on a new draft resolution recognizing Palestine as a nonmember observer state. A majority vote in favor is all but