Policy Analysis

On March 4, 2010, David Makovsky, Ziegler distinguished fellow and director of The Washington Institute's Project on the Middle East Peace Process, testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the urgency of promoting "top-down" negotiations if the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are to regain momentum. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member

The campaigns for the March 7 parliamentary elections have proven to be the most competitive in recent Iraqi history. Hundreds of parties and other entities are fielding thousands of candidates to vie for 325 seats. The contest has been heated, vibrant, and, at times, controversial and violent. Yet the ups

In the most interesting development in Egyptian politics in years, former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei is eyeing an improbable challenge to six-term incumbent president Hosni Mubarak -- or his son Gamal -- in September 2011. While Egyptian law and Mubarak's authoritarian

On February 26, Syrian president Bashar al-Asad hosted Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad and Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah for a dinner in Damascus. Nasrallah is a routine guest in the capital, but the timing of this high-profile trip -- just a week after the United States dispatched Undersecretary of State William

On February 25, 2010, Seth Jones, Andre Le Sage, and Thomas Krajeski addressed a special Policy Forum luncheon at The Washington Institute regarding al-Qaeda safe havens in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Dr. Jones is a political scientist at the RAND Corporation and an adjunct professor in Georgetown University's Security

The time has come for policymakers to consider previously unexploited tools of leverage, including U.S. soft power.

In its most recent report, the IAEA acknowledged what many observers have asserted for years -- that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. Whether this is the result of new evidence, or merely the willingness of the agency's new director-general to heed the existing evidence, is beside the point. The

Ehud Barak, former prime minister and Israel's most decorated soldier, delivered the 2010 Zeev Schiff Memorial Lecture on Middle East Security.

Turkey's Islamist ruling coalition faces the courts and military in a showdown for the nation's future. Will Turkey move closer to the liberal democracies or away from them? This tension has riven Turkey since its founding as a secular state by Ataturk. But the strains are peaking now. The ruling

For the last several decades, the Turkish military was untouchable; no one dared to criticize the military or its top generals, lest they risk getting burned. The Turkish Armed Forces were the ultimate protectors of founding father Kemal Ataturk's secular legacy, and no other force in the country could seriously

Willingly or not, Dubai has been thrust onto the front line of diplomacy aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions and terrorism sponsorship. The January 20, 2010, assassination of Hamas gunrunner Mahmoud al-Mabhouh on its soil was a reminder of the emirate's longstanding trade and commercial links with Iran -- he

While all Iraqi political factions are competing strongly in lead up to the March 7 parliamentary elections, in Iraqi Kurdistan the internal competition is especially intense. In particular, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK, the more secular and less tribal of the two major Iraqi Kurdish political parties) stands to

Recently, Hamas has gone to extraordinary lengths to prove that it did not attack civilian targets in Israel during the December 2008 to January 2009 Gaza conflict. But a review of the organization's own media -- including the website of its military arm, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades ( www.qassam.ps)

The AKP's handling of foreign policy is one of the areas that generates most intense domestic debate and international scrutiny of Turkey's ruling party. Turkey's traditional allies have been somewhat neglected as the AKP has pursued a more enthusiastic policy toward anti-Western states. Soner Cagaptay examines what this policy has

Read this article at ForeignAffairs.com More than 16 years after the euphoria of the Oslo accords, the Israelis and the Palestinians have still not reached a final-status peace agreement. Indeed, the last decade has been dominated by setbacks -- the second intifada, which started in September 2000; Hamas' victory in

Against the backdrop of the Iranian government's continuing crackdown on its critics, Western powers are preparing for a fourth round of multilateral sanctions and other measures in the hopes of persuading Tehran to alter course on its controversial uranium enrichment policy. But even with Russia now apparently on board, will

A February 18 report from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Paris-based organization that sets global standards for combating money laundering and terrorism financing, revealed new details about Iran's ongoing activities in both realms. The same day, a new report from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reached

On February 19, 2010, David Makovsky, Jacob Walles, and Robert Satloff addressed a special Policy Forum luncheon at The Washington Institute regarding the obstacles to Middle East peace a year into the Obama administration and the path forward in the year to come. Mr. Makovsky is the Institute's Ziegler distinguished

Today, most Turks agree that their country needs a new Constitution. There is disagreement, however, on how this Constitution should be drafted. The governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP, needs 367 of the 550 votes in Parliament to pass a new Constitution. It currently has 337 deputies. A referendum

Yemen again appears to be developing into a proxy war, the latest battlefield in the conflict between Iran and the "moderate" Arab states.