Policy Analysis

In an April 8 confrontation at Camp Ashraf, Iraq -- home to some 3,400 members of the Iranian dissident organization Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) -- Iraqi army forces killed at least thirty-four people, according to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. The clash highlighted an ongoing problem: what to

The key to dealing with the Assad regime is to always keep your options open and be prepared to walk away with no obligations. Only by making clear when it will do so, and what will be the consequences, will Washington ever have a hope of getting a straight answer out of the Syrian president.

Unless Netanyahu and Abbas cross historic threshold over the next month, the prospects for peace are likely to slide backward just as so much of the Middle East is trying to surge forward.

Read prepared remarks by the FBI's counterterrorism chief on how the Bureau assess the global terrorist threat ten years after 9/11 and how it is organizing its efforts.

Washington must at minimum take a clear position with regard to Damascus and human rights -- which could prove a key point of consensus in the international response to the regime's brutal suppression of Syrian demands for democratic reform.

On April 13, 2011, J. Scott Carpenter, Keston Family fellow and director of Project Fikra: Defeating Extremism through the Power of Ideas at The Washington Institute, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. The following is an excerpt

On April 11, 2011, J. Scott Carpenter, Dina Guirguis, David Schenker, and Robert Satloff addressed a special Policy Forum luncheon at The Washington Institute. Ms. Guirguis is a Keston Family research fellow with Project Fikra: Defeating Extremism through the Power of Ideas. Mr. Schenker is the Aufzien fellow and director

King Abdullah thinks the Obama administration's love of universal freedoms is naive and inappropriate for conservative Gulf Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, especially when the real concern is Iran.

Although the Papyrus Revolution was a remarkable accomplishment for the Egyptian people, the ongoing transition has spurred trepidation as well as hope in the United States. Past transfers of power in Cairo have led to dramatic policy shifts, giving Washington little reason to believe that the latest leadership change will

On April 13, 2011, Washington Institute executive director Robert Satloff testified at a U.S. House of Representatives panel on the Muslim Brotherhood's role in Egypt following the end of the Mubarak regime. I believe deep concern about the Muslim Brotherhood's potential emergence as a major player and even power-broker is

The authors contend that the primary motive behind the AKP's stance toward the Arab regimes is not money, but rather the desire to show solidarity with certain anti-American regimes and distaste for pro-American ones.

If the recent political movements in the Arab world lead to more free and liberal societies, this will promise the decline of Iranian influence in the region. For the current Iranian regime, democracy is no longer threatening only at home, but also abroad.

On April 11, President Obama dispatched his national security advisor, Tom Donilon, on a three-day trip to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). During the trip, the United States will likely discuss the crises in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Syria, as well as the situation in Bahrain, where

Although traditional efforts to combat terror financing by "seizing and freezing" terrorist assets have been effective, as terrorist groups continue to evolve and additional transnational threats arise, a Bletchley Park-style financial intelligence will be increasingly called upon to connect the dots and prevent attacks.

During the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Syria's Assad regime was helping insurgents to cross the border and kill Americans. In response to the Syrian provocation, the Bush administration considered a broad range of policy options. But one family of options always remained off the table: regime change or any combination of pressures that might destabilize Damascus. At the Department of Defense, we held a dissenting view.

In a remarkable April 1 article published in the Washington Post, Judge Richard Goldstone -- chairman of the UN fact-finding mission that investigated the military conflict in Gaza in 2008-2009 -- expressed regret for some of the most damning findings against Israel in his mission's report. His article declares that

China has arrived in the Greater Middle East and appears determined to stay awhile. Over the past decade, deeming energy security too important to be left to market forces alone, Beijing has prioritized the issue as a matter of national security. From new pipeline and infrastructure projects to increased naval

Incitement to violence, long a secondary issue in Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, has returned to the front burner. About a year ago, the Israeli government began publishing an "incitement index" that tracked Palestinian Authority (PA) statements and publications. Then, on March 11 of this year, the Fogel family was massacred in the

On April 3, Michael Singh presented a paper at a conference in Brussels on "Democratic Change in the Arab Region: State Policy and the Dynamics of the Civil Society," organized by the Euro-Mediterranean Foundation of Support to Human Rights Defenders (EMHRF). Examining the history of U.S. democracy promotion efforts by

Strong U.S.-Turkish relations are not to be taken for granted, at least while the Justice and Development Party (AKP) remains in power. So, how is the U.S. to meet the dual challenge of the AKP's increasingly ideological foreign policy agenda and parallel Turkish anti-Americanism?