U.S. Policy

On April 29, the U.S. Department of State will issue Patterns of Global Terrorism 1999, its comprehensive annual survey describing events, trends, and developments in international terrorism during 1999. Because it is based on open source material already available to the informed public, the significance of the report lies more

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's March 17 speech to the Conference on American-Iranian Relations was a milestone in the slowly improving bilateral ties. Although a number of useful ideas were broached, on balance the speech missed a golden opportunity to make common cause with reformist supporters of Iranian president Muhammad

On February 1, the multilateral track of the Middle East peace process is scheduled to resume in Moscow with the first meeting of the Steering Committee since May 1995. In the wake of Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak's election last summer, there was widespread expectation that the multilateral talks would

After more than a week of negotiations in Shepherdstown, W.Va., the "working draft" of the Syria-Israel peace treaty reported in yesterday's Ha'aretz notes only one area of seemingly irreconcilable difference between the two parties--over the scope of the demilitarized zone separating the two sides. As currently worded, the text neither

The millennial year opened on a high note for U.S. diplomacy, with Syria-Israel peace talks convening yesterday in Shepherdstown, W.Va. Unlike the other two participants, however, Washington has so far not indicated what it wants from these negotiations or what it is willing to pay to get it. Although Washington

On December 2, 1999, Antony Blinken, special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council, delivered The Washington Institute's Third Annual Turgut Ozal Memorial Lecture. The following are excerpts from his presentation. Read a full transcript. "What seems an obvious point today was

On December 1, Mu'awyeh Al-Masri, a Palestinian legislator from Nablus, was shot in the leg by a group of masked men in broad daylight. This mafia-style "kneecapping" was the culmination of several days of arrests and protests in the Palestinian Authority (PA) which followed the distribution of a leaflet accusing

On October 22, 1999, Vice President Al Gore delivered the keynote address to The Washington Institute's Inaugural Weinberg Founders Conference. The following are excerpts from his speech. Read a full transcript. "Our engagement in the world has a huge impact on the peace and prosperity of the Middle East and

On October 12, 1999, Ambassador Michael Sheehan, coordinator for counterterrorism at the Department of State, addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. The following are excerpts from his prepared speech. Read a full transcript. The Changing Character of Middle Eastern Terrorism "The international terrorism by Middle Eastern groups that plagued