Middle East

Join a live webcast with a senior HSI official, a little-known agency with many unique authorities that is instrumental in solving numerous terrorism cases every year.

U.S.-European cooperation in the Middle East may not rank high in American voters’ minds, but the issue will demand close policy attention in the months ahead. If Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump, European leaders should not allow their undoubted relief to lapse into complacency. And if Trump prevails, they should

Recent gestures, which have included reconciliation talks with Hamas, could strengthen the PA’s Gaza-based rival, further strain relations with its traditional Arab allies, and spur elections with destabilizing results.

The Washington meeting between the United States and Qatar, overlapping with the Israel-UAE signing ceremony on normalization, creates a unique opportunity to resolve the dispute between U.S. allies.

As soon as next month, Israel’s new government could approve plans to annex a substantial portion of the West Bank. The trigger for this comes from Washington—a shift by the Trump administration to recognize Israel’s new self-declared borders. But that still doesn’t explain why. What might Israel gain by discarding

The Islamic State no longer governs territory, but aspiring jihadists can now point to a caliphate project achieved in their lifetime, a long-held yearning of the international movement.

Despite long-documented public weariness with Middle East conflicts, Trump’s successor could well recognize the value of reestablishing American credibility in the region.

The current holder of the highest clerical rank in Shia Islam is eighty-nine-year-old Ali al-Sistani, who is based in Najaf, Iraq. Sistani has played an important role in Iraq’s post-Saddam era, supporting political reconciliation and a constitution-based society. While the transnational reach of marjaiya will likely diminish after Sistani leaves the scene, the specific contours of this shift and Tehran's efforts to intervene remain an open question.

The Washington Institute has recently been sponsoring a series of discussions about sudden succession in the Middle East. Each session focuses on scenarios that might unfold if a specific ruler or leader departed the scene tomorrow. Questions include these: Would the sudden change lead to different policies? Would it affect