U.S. Policy

Talk to senior Israeli military officials, as I have recently, about how the Israeli government will respond to regional threats, and one hears the same refrain: "Wait for the Winograd findings." Well, we now know what they are. The Winograd Commission, established last fall to investigate Israel's war with Lebanon

On April 18, 2007, senior Treasury and State Department officials testifying before Congress were criticized for failing to employ sufficiently tough economic sanctions against Iran. This failure was partly attributed to Washington's fear of upsetting foreign allies. Ironically enough, the Bush administration could use such congressional pressure as leverage in

Buried deep in the U.S. State Department's 335-page report on terrorism in 2006, released this week, is a brief section on "countering terrorism on the economic front." It offers a comprehensive outline of the government's successful efforts to block funding of terrorists and their supporters but makes no mention of

Over the past decade, Washington has stepped up its public diplomacy efforts toward Iran, particularly in the area of Persian-language broadcasting. Despite their good intentions, however, many of these initiatives are flawed in ways that hinder their goals and do little to reverse anti-American sentiment in Iran. From widespread mistranslation

Consider this scenario: The Saudis have gone nuclear. So have the Egyptians. Both countries had been signatories to the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty, but that agreement is now dissolved. Riyadh and Cairo acquired their weapons from Pakistan, a Sunni ally, in response to the nuclear threat from Shia Iran. Meanwhile

The word statecraft is often used and seldom explained. Many use it to describe the tools of governing. Others treat it as a synonym for diplomacy. I see it as the "what" and "how" of our foreign policy. The "what" translates into what our objectives ought to be. The "how"

In response to recent revelations about the FBI's misuse of national security letters - administrative subpoenas issued by the FBI without having to go through a judge, a longtime FBI tool enhanced by the Patriot Act - some members of Congress are threatening to scale back the FBI's authority to

On December 26, 2006, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak proposed a package of amendments to the Egyptian constitution with the purported aim of introducing more democratic freedom into Egypt's sclerotic political system. In effect, however, these "reforms" will serve only to strengthen the ruling party's stranglehold on Egyptian politics and send

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