U.S. Policy

From the downfall of Saddam Husayn's regime to the failure of the Abu Mazen government and the growing conflict over Iranian nuclear ambitions, the year 2003 was an especially eventful one in the Middle East. For the first time, the annual compendium of flagship Washington Institute analysis has been compiled

This week, hundreds of U.S. soldiers will participate in Juniper Cobra, a joint exercise with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to test the interoperability of U.S. Patriot and Israeli Arrow antiballistic missile systems. Such bilateral cooperation, coupled with reports that the Bush administration is considering providing Israel an additional $4

The gap between London and Washington on foreign policy is widening. Crevasses have often opened or closed in the past -- or have had to be perilously bridged. But the issue of the post-Saddam Hussein Middle East -- or even achieving this nirvana -- now looks dangerously like causing a

On December 20, 2002, the Quartet convened at the White House to discuss the Middle East when President George W. Bush met with UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov, and three ministerial representatives of the European Union (Stig Moeller, Javier Solana, and Chris Patten). The purpose of

U.S. policy on promoting democracy in Muslim-majority countries took two steps forward and one step back last week with Secretary of State Colin Powell's major address unveiling the new Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). On the positive side was the simple fact that democratization merited such cabinet-level focus, along with

In a thoughtful and measured address on December 4, State Department Policy Planning Director Richard Haass enunciated a new Bush administration policy on building "greater democracy" in the "Muslim world." Though it skirted several of the toughest policy issues (e.g., whether and how to promote democracy in inhospitable terrain like

Last Friday, while official Washington was still enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday break, the White House stealthily issued Presidential Determination 2003-04, whose first paragraph instructs the State Department to sanction the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) for noncompliance with obligations stemming from the Oslo Accords. This was

A false debate has broken out between those who say a key goal of any attack against Iraq would be the creation of an Iraqi democracy and those who believe the world is ultimately more secure if reliable authoritarians can be found in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East

As the chance of war with Iraq grows, we should pause today to recall the 60th anniversary of Operation Torch, the American-British invasion of North Africa during World War II. Thanks to Torch, the momentum began to swing against Nazi Germany, an evil regime that used what we now call