U.S. Policy

Two years ago, during the month of Ramadan, a bus carrying 50 Iraqi soldiers heading home on leave was ambushed outside Baghdad. The soldiers were led out of the bus, lined up on the pavement, and killed -- like so many other Iraqi soldiers, policemen, and recruits trained by the

President Bush and his advisers were not the only ones who were anxious about what the Iraq Study Group would recommend. So were the Saudis, which explains why they sought an urgent meeting between King Abdullah and Vice President Cheney in late November. The source of Saudi anxiety was almost

On December 2, 2006, the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain held the second round of runoff elections for its national assembly, an advisory body. Meanwhile, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), December 16-20 will see the first-ever elections for half of the advisory federal national council, all of whose members

The New York Times invited several experts with unique personal experience in Iraq to comment on the Iraq Study Group Report. Andrew Exum is currently a Soref fellow at The Washington Institute; in 2003 he led a platoon of Army Rangers in Iraq. The fates of 26 million Iraqis and

Virtually no corner of the world remains immune to the threat of radical Islamists. Africa, Asia, Europe, the two Americas -- in different ways, using different means, and operating under different guises, jihadists of various stripes have waged war against "infidels" (America, Israel, the West) and "apostates" (non-Islamist Muslims) around

On December 5, 2006, Sallai Meridor addressed The Washington Institute’s Special Policy Forum. Recently appointed Israeli ambassador to the United States, he previously served as chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and as advisor to the Israeli ministers of defense and foreign affairs. The following is a rapporteur’s summary

According to press reports, one of the principal policy recommendations of the congressionally mandated Iraq Study Group will be that Washington should engage Iraq’s neighbors—particularly Syria and Iran—in its efforts to staunch the ongoing violence in Iraq. However, both historical precedent and current conditions on the ground in Iraq suggest

As Western diplomats debate ways to counter Iran's nuclear program, the strategies they devise must take Iranian motives into account. If Iranian leaders see their nuclear program as essential to defending Iran's existence—as the Israeli and Pakistani governments view their nuclear programs—then economic considerations would make little difference to Iran's

The production of plans, options, and proposals for Iraq has become a cottage industry. As the plans roll out, by what criteria should they be evaluated? What makes one plan or set of plans qualitatively better than another? General Criteria Several criteria that all plans or proposals should include are