Middle East

A potential Israeli push to annex parts of the West Bank threatens to upend a reasonably tolerable and surprisingly stable status quo to achieve dubious benefits at significant cost.

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

A recent spate of high-level regional visits may pave the way for Moscow to entrench itself from the East Mediterranean to the Gulf of Aden, with help from the Gulf states.