Policy Analysis

In his Rose Garden speech yesterday, President George W. Bush jumped head-first into the waters of Middle East diplomacy by committing the prestige of his administration to the achievement of an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire and, ultimately, to "ending the conflict and beginning an era of peace." Analytically, the most important innovation

A revisionist critique of the Bush administration's Middle East policy holds that blame for the current Palestinian-Israeli violence should be laid at the doorstep of a White House that invested too little, too late in the "peace process." Before this canard takes hold, let's set the record straight. When President

On April 2, 2002, Helena Kane Finn, a State Department public diplomacy officer on loan to The Washington Institute, delivered a speech at Georgetown University. Following is the full text of her presentation. Read a summary of her remarks. Note: The views expressed herein are her own and not necessarily

INTRODUCTION It is an understatement to say that the attacks of September 11, 2001, were transformative events, both for how Americans view their own sense of security and for how America engages with the world. Osama bin Laden may have declared war on the United States years ago, but it

I was at a Seder in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevassaret Zion when I heard news of the terror attack in Netanya. We were waiting for my university colleague's extended family to arrive. They were coming from the coastal plain. It was pouring rain, but given Israeli driving habits, downpours

The Saudi initiative for Israeli-Palestinian peace—soon to be presented at the upcoming Arab Summit in Beirut—is in part a tool to address tensions in Saudi relations with the United States after the September 11 attacks. A more important motivation for the initiative, however, is that the Saudi ruling family is

There is a popular joke in Baghdad about a man who buys a black-and-white television set. He takes the set home, plugs it in, but it doesn't work. So he runs back to the market and confronts the merchant. "You've sold me a defective television," he complains, "I plug it

Responding to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades' latest suicide bombing—which threatened to undermine the third straight peace mission of Middle East envoy Gen. Anthony Zinni—the State Department broke with tradition and announced the group's pending designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), even before Congress completed the process leading to its

In the year 1000, the Middle East had a population of approximately 30 million people, and it remained around that level until 1800. Between 1800 and 1900, however, the figure grew by 75 percent, and then by another 565 percent during the twentieth century, bringing the population to 386 million

Beyond the current violence and terrorism lies a demographic reality in the Arab-Israeli dispute which might in the future transform the politics, economics, and geography of the region. The demographics may affect U.S. foreign policy vis-à-vis the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In the next twenty years, the population of Israel (including all

Over the past month, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted a large-scale operation in several cities and refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, beginning on the night of February 27 and ending nearly three weeks later with the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Bethlehem and Bet-Jalla on

On March 13, a number of U.S. senators, policymakers, and professors gathered at a conference dedicated to criticizing George Bush's policy toward Iran. The annual American Iranian Council gala is subsidized by a dozen oil companies, and sponsored by those same universities -- Columbia and Georgetown -- whose faculty so

On March 6, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on both Prime Minister Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to end "the cycle of violence." Annan placed blame equally upon the two leaders. To do otherwise would be undiplomatic. The moral-equivalency labeling of both sides as equally at fault is

Israelis and Palestinians are fighting an escalating war with no end in sight. The more force is used, the less secure Israelis become. The more violence is employed as a tactic, the more pain Palestinians suffer and the less likely they are to see Israeli occupation end any time soon

As the Bush administration seeks to define its policy on the Middle East, Libya has emerged in the high drama of the U.S. war against terrorism. A Scottish appeals court yesterday upheld the conviction of former Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Baset al-Megrahi for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight

On March 13, 2002, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz delivered The Washington Institute's Fifth Annual Turgut Ozal Memorial Lecture. The following are excerpts from his remarks. Read a full transcript. "It is the great good fortune of the United States to have in Turkey a friend and ally that

Tomorrow's conference of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Vienna comes at a time when higher oil prices have been reflected in increased gasoline prices over the last two months. Indeed, further price hikes are possible, particularly as talk of war with Iraq has strengthened the futures

On March 13, 2002, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz delivered The Washington Institute's Fifth Annual Turgut Ozal Memorial Lecture. Following is a full transcript of his presentation, as delivered. Read a summary of his remarks. Rob [Satloff, Executive Director of the Washington Institute], I was all set to thank

On March 1, 2002, Matthew Levitt, Dennis Ross, and Patrick Clawson addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. Mr. Levitt is a senior fellow in terrorism studies at the Institute and a former terrorism analyst for the FBI. The following is a rapporteur's summary of his remarks. Read a summary

While publicly stressing Saudi Arabia's cooperation and shared concern regarding terrorist financing, U.S. treasury secretary Paul O'Neill held private consultations this past week in Riyadh with Saudi officials and businessmen regarding specific Saudi organizations and individuals suspected of financing terrorist activities. Promising to find clear-cut cases, O'Neill reassured his hosts