U.S. Policy

This PolicyWatch revisits some key points in the author's 2007 Washington Institute Policy Focus, Secularism and Foreign Policy in Turkey: New Elections, Troubling Trends. For more on this topic, please visit our Turkish Research Program page. On December 7, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit Washington to meet

On November 24, 2009, Martin Kramer and Mark Clark addressed a special Policy Forum luncheon at The Washington Institute to discuss how government can engage academe in the service of U.S. Middle East policy. Martin Kramer is The Washington Institute's Wexler-Fromer senior fellow and president-designate of Shalem College in Jerusalem

On November 18, Iraqi vice president Tariq al-Hashimi vetoed an elections law passed by parliament just ten days earlier, likely delaying elections that had previously been slated for January 2010. Such elections are a factor in the planned U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, with U.S. military officials stating that they will

The following is an edited version of Dr. Robert Satloff's November 6, 2009, Policy Forum presentation at The Washington Institute. The presentations by Ghaith al-Omari and Ehud Yaari are published as PolicyWatch #1602. How is it possible that an administration that came to office committed to the pursuit of Arab-Israeli

Long-running tension between the government of Yemen and a rebellious clan in a remote border area has the potential to erupt into a major regional crisis, with media reports suggesting that the tension has the characteristics of a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. On November 10, the Iranian

PolicyWatch #1594 is the second in a two-part series discussing trends in Somalia. This piece focuses on peacebuilding efforts and Somalia's ties to terrorism, while PolicyWatch #1593 addresses the country's growing insurgency. On September 14, 2009, U.S. special forces killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a senior leader of al-Qaeda's East

Advocates for engaging Hamas often argue that if the group is given a stake in the creation of an independent Palestine by being included in peace negotiations, it will moderate its positions. This co-optation argument is based on the misguided assumption that Hamas is a pragmatic nationalistic movement, motivated primarily

Download the complete proceedings. On October 17, 2009, Mohamed Abdelbaky, Nabeel Khoury, and David Pollock addressed The Washington Institute's annual Weinberg Founders Conference. Mohamed Abdelbaky is a Keston visiting fellow at The Washington Institute's Project Fikra, focusing on economic and political reform, democracy, governance, and youth development in the Middle

A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel, Allis and Ronald Radosh's suspenseful, meticulously documented account of Harry S. Truman's controversial decision to recognize the new state of Israel, has won the Gold Prize -- including a cash award of $30,000 -- in The Washington Institute's 2009