Democracy and Reform

Iran-backed armed groups hate being exposed as criminals in the eyes of a populace that cares deeply about rule of law, so they have turned Iraq’s legal sector into a battlespace.

Whoever winds up spearheading the reconstruction effort, Washington should stay on top of them to ensure that international prerequisites for reform and monitoring are enforced—and to keep China from exploiting Lebanon’s struggles.

Four factors have gradually legitimized honest regional discussion of the Holocaust and made traditional statements of denial and distortion less acceptable.

The immediate crisis seems to have ended for now, but the stunningly public Hashemite feud is a reminder that Jordan’s stability needs tending and is not something to be taken for granted by Washington or Amman’s regional friends.

With few exceptions, the U.S. government has pursued Arab development, Israeli-Palestinian engagement, and Arab-Israel normalization as three separate, walled-off tracks, which no longer makes any sense.

Recent understandings between Cairo and Ankara have many of the group’s exiled figures worried about their future on Turkish soil.

The U.S. does not always have to be at the head of the table, but it has to be present and ready to jump in if progress stalls on issues such as advancing political dialogue, holding elections on time, and addressing Russia’s worrisome military encroachment.

Abbas may decide to postpone the vote given Fatah’s internal fissures, his rivals’ relative unity, and the damage that certain outcomes could do to Palestinian relations with the West.

The political fallout from a recent speech by the Lebanese Armed Forces commander gives Washington and its partners a golden opportunity to prod the country from crisis management toward actual solutions.