Energy & Economics

How is the U.S. government applying its financial and economic tools to combat terrorism and rogue regimes?

The UN has just added three financiers to its terrorism list for providing financial support to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. This would be heartening news but for the fact that it took the UN more than a year to do this, even though the US Treasury had designated the

In spring 2007, a Gulf diplomat visiting Washington was asked how states such as Kuwait seem to remain insulated from regional crises in Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere. His response was unexpectedly poetic: "Think of a swan gliding across a pond. It all seems so serene -- but right below the

In December 2005, the 9-11 Commission's Public Discourse Project issued its final report card on the U.S. government's progress in the war on terror. Overall, the grades were dismal except for the "A-minus" awarded to the efforts against terrorism financing. Nearly two years later, and six years after the September

How can the private sector aid U.S. counterterrorism efforts?

On May 10, 2007, Robert Kimmitt addressed The Washington Institute's nineteenth annual Soref Symposium. Ambassador Kimmitt is deputy secretary of the treasury. The following are edited extracts from his comments during the question and answer session. Read the prepared text of Ambassador Kimmitt's address. Q: What are the relative constraints

On April 30, 2007, the Turkish stock market slumped and the value of the lira dropped following a massive demonstration in Istanbul against the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, coupled with a statement by the military voicing support for secularism. Previously, the comparatively healthy Turkish economy had boosted the

On March 15, 2007, Institute senior fellow and director of the Stein Program on Terrorism, Intelligence, and Policy, testified before a joint hearing of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade and Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia. The following is

Lebanon has secured pledges for assistance roughly equal to its $3.6 billion estimate of what is required to rebuild from the recent war. Though foreign assistance will be an important element in the short-term physical reconstruction, it will do little to help Beirut contend with the longstanding structural maladies afflicting