U.S. Policy

With less than a week before the publication of the Iraq Study Group's report, it is speculated that the panel chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton will recommend diplomatic engagement of Syria and Iran. The Bush administration has been firmly against dialogue with Syria, emphasizing how Damascus has made

On November 7, 2006, Dvorah Chen, Christopher Hamilton, and Michael Taxay addressed The Washington Institute’s Special Policy Forum. Ms. Chen, a visiting Ira Weiner fellow at the Institute, was director of security matters and special affairs in the Israeli state attorney’s office from 1996 to 2004, where she led the

Yesterday, President George W. Bush announced that he was nominating former CIA director Robert Gates as secretary of defense following the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld. Gates, currently the president of Texas A&M University, served as director of central intelligence from 1991 to 1993. In all, he spent twenty-seven years as

Since the September 11 attacks, promoting democracy has been a cornerstone of the Bush administration's Middle East policy, viewed as the best antidote to radicalism. Washington has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to advancing Middle Eastern civil society, and the region has witnessed an unprecedented array of elections. In

On October 20, 2006, eighty-three-year-old King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia announced changes to the kingdom's "Basic Law" -- effectively its constitution -- that appear to formalize procedures for the selection of future kings. However, it is difficult to know how much the current system of succession will actually change. For

As a longtime negotiator in the Middle East, I learned that the most demanding requirement of peacemaking was just getting each side to adjust to reality. In Iraq today, 3 1/2 years after the United States went to war there, no one seems to be doing that. The Shiites, who

Soner Cagaptay appeared on CNN-Turk's Burasi Washington, ("This Is Washington") on October 15. In an extended interview with CNN-Turk correspondent Yasemin Congar, Mr. Cagaptay discussed issues of critical importance to U.S.-Turkish relations. These included secularism in Turkey, terrorist activity by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, and the

On September 28, 2006, Washington Institute senior fellow Christopher Hamilton testified before the House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation. Mr. Hamilton directs The Washington Institute's Terrorism Studies Program. The prepared text of his remarks follows. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I have been

On September 7, 2006, Michael Jacobson, Telmo Baltazar, and Jeremy Shapiro addressed The Washington Institute’s Special Policy Forum. Telmo Baltazar is the political justice and home affairs counselor for the European Commission’s mission to Washington. Jeremy Shapiro is director of research at the Brookings Institution’s Center on the United States