Arab & Islamic Politics

Following a year in which homegrown terrorist activity increased sharply, the 2010 holiday season witnessed a spate of attacks, plots, warnings, and arrests around the world, from Sweden to India to Portland, Oregon. As a result, efforts to combat violent extremism are being hotly debated. In Britain, the "Prevent" counterradicalization

The CHP has to reinvent itself as the party of secularism, to find a place where it can be at peace with religion but also promote socially liberal values.

On December 17, 2010, Andrew Natsios and Richard Williamson addressed a special Policy Forum at The Washington Institute discussing the ramifications of the upcoming Sudanese referendum. Mr. Natsios, a former U.S. special envoy to Sudan, is currently on the faculty of Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service

Recent WikiLeaks revelations about the discrepancy between the public and private views on Iran voiced by Gulf Arab leaders have been widely covered by the pan-Arab media without provoking policy shifts or internal tensions in Gulf Arab states. U.S. officials should therefore be encouraged in their policy of pressing for

On November 30, 2010, Daniel Serwer and Mithal al-Alusi addressed a special Policy Forum luncheon at The Washington Institute. Mr. Serwer, a visiting scholar, senior fellow, and professorial lecturer at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, previously led U.S. Institute of Peace teams working on rule of law

J. Scott Carpenter, director of The Washington Institute's Project Fikra, gave remarks at an event marking the release of "Unfinished Business: An American Strategy for Iraq Moving Forward," a report to which he contributed as coauthor. In highlighting the report's conclusions, Mr. Carpenter emphasized both the centrality of Iraqi domestic

For thirty years, Iran has sponsored Iraqi paramilitary proxies, demonstrating the Islamic Republic's ability to commission violence within Iraq. In this new article, Washington Institute Lafer fellow Michael Knights discusses the genesis of Iran's current support for "Special Groups" of militant Shia diehards, emphasizing their destabilizing effect on Iraq and

On November 17, 2010, Soner Cagaptay, J. Scott Carpenter, Osman Faruk Logoglu, and Ian Lesser addressed a special Policy Forum luncheon at The Washington Institute to mark the launch of Regenerating the U.S.-Turkey Partnership, a new Institute Policy Note. Dr. Cagaptay, who coauthored the report with Mr. Carpenter, is director

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