U.S. Policy

The State Department recently submitted its semiannual Palestine Liberation Organization Commitments Compliance Act (PLOCCA) report to Congress, assessing PLO and Palestinian Authority (PA) compliance with commitments made under the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords during the period June 15, 2001–December 15, 2001. The report acknowledges some PA shortcomings over the reporting period

The 2001 edition of Patterns of Global Terrorism, the U.S. government's preeminent annual accounting of international terrorism, is slated for release tomorrow, a few weeks later than its usual April unveiling. The delay is presumably the result of the sharp rise in international terror activity in 2001. The report is

The United States is viewed with suspicion by much of the rest of the world, and its motives are consistently questioned for several reasons. This reality can be addressed through actionable goals. First, the United States is perceived as being too big, a hyperpower whose global reach is threatening. Second

On January 29, President George W. Bush caused considerable consternation among foreign policy analysts by referring to an "axis of evil" in his State of the Union address. The analysts worried that the president's castigation of Iran would embolden hardliners who routinely exploit external threats as a means of deflecting

On January 3, in the clouds high above the waters of the Red Sea, Lt. General Shaul Mofaz, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, peered anxiously through a specially designed telescopic lens at an old, rusty, blue freighter several kilometers below. For the previous three months, Israeli intelligence

After declining at least two earlier invitations since January 2001, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is due to meet President George W. Bush for the first time this Thursday. The de facto leader of America's leading oil supplier (his elder half-brother, King Fahd, is ailing) had previously snubbed Washington's

On April 2, 2002, Helena Kane Finn, a State Department public diplomacy officer on loan to The Washington Institute, delivered a speech at Georgetown University. The following is a summary of her remarks. Read a full transcript. Note: The views expressed herein are her own and not necessarily those of

As the debate intensifies over U.S. policy toward Iraq, I keep thinking about a conversation I had last spring over dinner with a surgeon I'd met while visiting a hospital in Northern Iraq. "We have real problems with the United States," he said. "The American government always interferes in the

The antagonisms within the triangle of the United States, the Arab world, and Israel can be best reconciled by drawing a demarcation line in the region around rogue states and crazy regimes. This is also the way to preserve the interests of the United States in the Middle East. Members