Iran

Iranian hardliners are using the Gaza Strip crisis as an opportunity to restate their claim as the true Muslim leaders by denouncing Arab governments as complicit with Israel, stirring up the regime's supporters throughout the world, and suppressing Iranian civil society groups. Iran, while facing international pressure over its nuclear

Regarding Iraq, President Obama will face how to turn his campaign rhetoric into reality. During the campaign, a great deal of what Obama and his advisors had to say is that they thought the current strategy in Iraq was not addressing the principal problem facing Iraq and U.S.-Iraqi relations, namely

Everywhere you look in the Middle East today, Iran is threatening U.S. interests and the political order. One Arab ambassador told me recently that the Iranians are reminding Arab leaders that America didn't help Fuad Siniora, the prime minister of Lebanon, or Mikheil Saakashvili, the president of Georgia, when they

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad's congratulatory letter to U.S. president-elect Barack Obama was the first of its kind in the history of the Islamic Republic. In his letter, Ahmadinezhad expressed his hope for fundamental change in U.S. domestic and foreign policies. Although some observers speculate that the letter suggests a transformation

Download the complete text of this article (PDF) Conventional wisdom says preventive action against Iran's nuclear programme would entail significant risks and uncertain prospects of success. But that wisdom focuses too narrowly on military-technical considerations, does not ask the right questions regarding the preconditions for successful prevention, ignores historical experience

For the past several years, Turkey has balanced its relationship with the West with its relationship with Iran and Russia -- just as Finland balanced the West and Russia during the Cold War. Finland, at the time, paralleled Western policies but remained intimate with Moscow. In this Turkish-language interview, Soner

Conventional wisdom holds that when Iran's supreme leader says, "Jump," millions of Shiites, from the Beirut slums to the Saudi oilfields, ask, "How high?" But a recent meeting in Baghdad between a wealthy Lebanese Sunni politician and an ascetic Shiite theologian twice his age suggests that there is a move

Download the complete proceedings. On September 20, 2008, Ghassan Atiyyah, Reuel Marc Gerecht, and Michael Knights addressed The Washington Institute's annual Weinberg Founders Conference. Mr. Atiyyah is a former visiting fellow at the Institute and director of the Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy. Mr. Gerecht is a resident fellow

Last month, Tehran announced it was building maritime offices on the Persian Gulf island of Abu Musa, reigniting the long-standing territorial dispute between Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Since 1970, the disagreement over the island and the neighboring Greater and Lesser Tunbs has been mired in legal uncertainty