Policy Analysis

The recent confirmation that North Korea has built a centrifuge plant for uranium enrichment has major implications for the Middle East as much as it does for East Asia. The presence of the plant, shown on November 12 to visiting Stanford University professor Siegfried Hecker and two colleagues, has sparked

Turkey is not thought of as the Muslim country par excellence, but Turkey is, perhaps, the most Muslim nation in the world. Due to its unique birth during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, as a state forged exclusively by and for Muslims through blood and war, Turkey is a

The new "Strategic Concept" that NATO is expected to adopt at its Lisbon summit this weekend offers the advantage of an early initial capability to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian ballistic missile threat, even though -- in deference to Turkish sensibilities -- NATO is not expected to identify Iran

On November 15, 2010, Victor Comras, Alistair Millar, and Brian Wilson addressed a special Policy Forum luncheon at The Washington Institute. Mr. Comras is author of Flawed Diplomacy: The United Nations and the War on Terrorism (2010) and special counsel to the Eren law firm. Mr. Millar is director of

In a four-day journey at the beginning of November that took him through Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, and Benin, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki asserted that the United States was "displeased with the expansion of relations between Iran and African countries," and opined that while the U.S. had a "thirst

This is the third of a three-part series on Egypt's political future. PolicyWatch #1717 discusses the country's upcoming parliamentary elections, while Policy Watch #1718 addresses Egypt's use of constitutional and executive power. Recognizing that the Egyptian regime has set the stage for an undemocratic father-son transition, nearly one million Egyptians

Yesterday, November 17, in the middle of the Eid al-Adha holiday, the Saudi Press Agency announced that Prince Badr, the long-serving deputy commander of the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG), had asked to be relieved from that role due to ill health. Minutes later, the agency announced that Badr's request

In a speech this October at the national conference on "soft war" in Tehran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad emphasized that, "there are many interpretations of Islam, but [the] basis for our practice is the Iranian interpretation. The historical experience proves that the Iranian interpretation of the truth is the closest one

The quarrel between Ankara and NATO over the proposed missile-defense initiative suggests that Turkey is becoming the Alliance's "opt-out" member in operations in Muslim countries. The governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) has so far refused to host the missile shield because it is directed against potential threats from two

On November 17, 2010, Washington Institute executive director Robert Satloff offered Institute trustees immediate insight into the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary study tour to Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, and Jordan.

This is the first of a three-part series on Egypt's political future. Read part two and part three. Egypt's parliamentary elections, to be held on November 28, are a dress rehearsal for a much larger event: the 2011 presidential elections. Cairo is currently rife with rumors and National Democratic Party

Turkey may be the most Muslim nation in the world. It was forged through blood and war as a state exclusively by and for Muslims -- a claim it shares only with Pakistan. Fleeing persecution in Europe, Russia, and the Caucasus, millions of Turkish and non-Turkish Muslims settled there, and

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was in China this month touting the "new cooperation paradigm" between Ankara and Beijing. Just a week earlier, a top political advisor to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao spent five days in Syria signing deals and planting olive trees in the Golan Heights. The Middle Kingdom

This is the second of a three-part series on Egypt's political future. Read part one and part three. The Egyptian regime has used constitutional amendments to consolidate its power vis-a-vis the "loyal opposition" and to fend off independent bids for the presidency. The amendments have also closed off all legal

The recently foiled parcel bomb plot, tied to al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula, demonstrates today's persistent terror threat from abroad. Yet Western democracies face an equally serious threat from home-grown terrorists. In the past two weeks, the US government unsealed charges against six men accused of funnelling money to al-Shabab

Eight years after the Justice and Development Party (AKP) ascended to power in Ankara, U.S.-Turkish relations stand at a critical juncture: bilateral tensions surrounding regional flashpoints like Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process have heightened, and even the six-decade-old NATO-Turkish relationship can no longer be taken for granted, as evidenced

For the last few months, a forty-three-page Arabic-language booklet has been emailed to Hamas activists in the Gaza Strip and to select members of the group in the West Bank and elsewhere. Titled The Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Revolution in Iran, this new publication represents the most important attempt

The demise of Turkey's secular parties in the past decade is an example of what happens to an eye one does not use: It stops functioning properly. This is precisely what happened to the secular parties in Turkey. These factions ruled the country until 2002, when the Justice and Development

While all eyes are fixed on the faltering Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Israel is involved in another diplomatic standoff whose consequences may be just as dire for the future of the Middle East. The impasse in question is between Turkey and Israel -- erstwhile allies whose deteriorating relations undermine the security of

A key option for inspectors of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the world body charged with stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, is a "special inspection" an intrusive visit made when the IAEA judges the information provided by a state to be inadequate. But The IAEA is reluctant