U.S. Policy

What Is MENABANK? The idea for a regional development bank in the Middle East has been around for years. However, practical work for creation of a bank only began when the four core peace process parties—Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, and Egypt—jointly proposed the creation of the Bank in 1995

The terms rollback and containment surfaced during the Cold War. Rollback was always preferred to containment, but until Ronald Reagan's success in the 1980's, the Soviets were too strong. For this reason, the United States essentially settled for containment during the Cold War. By contrast, Iraq has a regime that

Amid continuing difficulties in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, focus has shifted to the role of the United States. There is a good deal of confusion concerning what the United States can and cannot do. The evolving role of the United States can be examined through a number of specific and

Iranian President Mohammad Khatemi's January 7 interview on CNN was long on history but short on policy indicatives. The most striking aspect of was that he gave it, not what he said. Khatemi is staking his prestige on foreign policy, which is surprising from a man whose entire career and

On the heels of the European Union's dismissal of Turkey's membership bid, Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz meets President Clinton at the White House tomorrow at a potentially fateful time for Turkey's relations with the West. Ultimately, Euro-Turkish relations need to be strengthened if Turkey is to be fully integrated

When Mohammed Khatemi was unexpectedly elected president in May 1997, he was called in Iran "Ayatollah Gorbachev," in the expectation the system could fall apart if it opened up. While it is too early too ascertain whether Khatemi's welcome rhetoric is matched by substantive changes in Iranian behavior, his recent

In the Middle East, money talks -- but not as loudly as politics. That's the lesson to be learned from the Middle East/North Africa economic summit, which concluded late last month in Doha, Qatar, under the shadow of the Iraq crisis. For Washington, the two events are connected, with the

Saddam Husayn probably had several motives in seeking to disrupt UN weapons inspections. First, he sought to undermine the effectiveness of the UN weapons inspectors, if not expel them altogether, because they are the main obstacle to his efforts to transform Iraq into a regional power. Second, Saddam currently has

The growing confrontation between the United Nations and Iraq focuses on American participation in U.N. weapons inspections. However, this crisis with a charter member of the State Department's list of state-sponsors of international terrorism can also be viewed through the prism of Washington's flagging efforts to contain rogue states, in