Policy Analysis

As we walked along Timbuktu's sandy streets, past mud mosques and houses, warm winds from the Sahara whipped dust over the city, obscuring the sun and stinging my eyes. The wind did not bother my guide Muhammad, however. He wore sunglasses and a turban, shielding himself from sun, sand, and

No matter what the outcome of the present crisis, the relationship between the Palestinians and Israelis will continue to be determined by various long-term trends and dynamic forces. Palestinian Political and Social Development The parameters and structure of Palestinian society and polity have not yet been clearly defined or recognized

On February 3, the New York Times published an op-ed by Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat titled "The Palestinian Vision of Peace." The timing of this op-ed is not coincidental. It appeared after several weeks of worsening U.S.-Palestinian ties, during which President George W. Bush registered his deep "disappointment" with the

President Bush's inclusion of Iran with Iraq and North Korea in the "axis of evil" prompted several commentators and academicians to express surprise, but they shouldn't have. Mr. Bush merely called a spade a spade. Some like to call Iran a democracy. It is not. President Mohammad Khatami may have

How to deal with Yasser Arafat is a serious issue, one that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush once again discussed in their meeting at the White House on Thursday. Sharon has publicly declared that he wants the U.S. to boycott Arafat because of the Palestinian leader's failure

President George W. Bush's reference to an "axis of evil" in his State of the Union address accurately captures the ties among Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. The president also usefully highlighted the overlap between proliferation and terrorism. In the end, there are more benefits than costs in using such

On January 31, following President George Bush's State of the Union condemnation of the "axis of evil," National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice explained, "Iran's direct support of regional and global terrorism, and its aggressive efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, belie any good intentions it displayed in the days

In his January 29 State of the Union address, President George Bush criticized Iran as one of three states (the other two being Iraq and North Korea) forming an 'axis of evil' and castigated its "unelected leaders" for denying the will of the majority. Indeed, the perennial conflict between Tehran's

On January 20-21, an interfaith summit of Muslim, Christian, and Israeli Jewish leaders convened in Alexandria, Egypt, after several years of effort and planning. The meeting did not draw much attention in the Egyptian or Palestinian media -- only in the Israeli media -- but it deserves attention, if not

In the wake of the Cold War, certain regions of the world (e.g., Western Europe, Northeast Asia, the Western hemisphere) are both important to the United States and, for the moment, relatively stable. Several other regions (e.g., sub-Saharan Africa, former Soviet Central Asia) are unstable but not as important. The

On September 11, the world changed -- or at least some of it did. Iraq did not. While the rest of the world mourned, or at least nominally condemned the terrorist attack, Iraqi president Saddam Husayn gloated. It is no surprise that Saddam would revel in the suffering of Americans

The Palestinian defense budget spending—relative to national income—is higher than that of any Arab country or Iran. This calculation is based on official data that exclude an important part of a state's defense budget—namely, procurement of weapons. The Oslo agreements prohibit the Palestinian Authority (PA) from procuring arms, yet they

Yasser Arafat sits in Ramallah a virtual prisoner. The master of the half measure is now paying the price for failing to make a strategic choice for peace. A year ago he could not say yes to the Clinton ideas -- ideas that would have given the Palestinians an independent

Growing U.S. military involvement in new locations such as Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and the Philippines has raised concerns in the Pentagon about overstretching the military and has prompted a call to reassess the future of America's long-standing contribution to peacekeeping missions worldwide. One of the missions at risk of being curtailed

The visit of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit to the United States last week was a political and public relations success for his administration, but a few questions remain: Can the Turks continue to implement the economic reforms required by the International Monetary Fund, or will there be slippage when the

With its longstanding support for terrorism, both pre- and post-September 11, Syria poses a unique challenge to U.S. antiterror strategy. Unlike Iran -- whose leaders orchestrate public chants of "Death to America, death to Israel" and thereby provide rhetorical context to their sponsorship of terrorism -- Damascus proclaims its desire

As the Bush administration surveys options for the next phases in the war on terrorism, scant attention has been focused on Syria -- despite the fact that Dr. Bashar al-Asad's regime has been among the world's most active supporters of terrorism, even after September 11. Background Syria is a charter

Since September 11, there has been increased concern about terrorists using weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It is thus natural to return to the issue of Iraq, a country that has used chemical agents against Iran and its own citizens. Indeed, Iraq violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty before 1990 and, prior