Policy Analysis

Iran is building military, social, and economic influence among eastern Syrian tribes, which are poised to invade SDF-controlled regions in the event of a U.S. withdrawal.

The immediate crisis seems to have ended for now, but the stunningly public Hashemite feud is a reminder that Jordan’s stability needs tending and is not something to be taken for granted by Washington or Amman’s regional friends.

Only three top State Department officials have been allowed to travel abroad, which is no way to preserve U.S. interests.

Despite winning relatively few seats, Naftali Bennett and Mansour Abbas may have much to say about who forms the next government, and a fragile coalition seems inevitable regardless of which side they choose.

Recent protests in Daraa demonstrate that Assad’s hold over regime-controlled areas are not as total as they appear.

Ashab al-Kahf is the first and best-known of the facade groups used by Iran-backed militias to selectively conceal their involvement in operations. Ashab al-Kahf historically has a strong connection to Asaib Ahl al-Haq.

With few exceptions, the U.S. government has pursued Arab development, Israeli-Palestinian engagement, and Arab-Israel normalization as three separate, walled-off tracks, which no longer makes any sense.

As the Iran-backed rebels make further range leaps that bring them closer to reaching Israel and other countries, the United States needs to start viewing them as a proliferation challenge beyond Yemen’s civil war.

To promote stability and other U.S. interests, Washington must reshape its approach to this increasingly complex staging ground for global competition.

Alwiyat al-Waed al-Haq is a facade group with unique ties to Kataib Hezbollah, and has been used exclusively to claim or threaten attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Kataib Hezbollah is the premier fasail (armed group) in Iraq, operating under the direct under-command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - Qods Force. It has a wide range of cells undertaking kinetic, media and social operations, some of which are bankrolled by the Iraqi state.

Qasem al-Jabbarin is a Kataib Hezbollah-directed facade group that specializes in roadside bombings against Iraqi supply trucks servicing the U.S. military in Iraq.

A complicated parliamentary compromise has reactivated some of the machinery required for this year’s proposed ballot and a potential resolution to the KRG energy dispute, though the country’s hobbled legal institutions are still holding back reform.

Since losing its territorial base, the group has shown troubling signs of recovery amid a deteriorating situation at al-Hawl refugee camp.

Algeria's divided Hirak movement needs greater unity in order to strengthen real, democratic institutions.

A village of women in Eastern Syria are upholding the core political beliefs of the Kurdish minority there.

Recent understandings between Cairo and Ankara have many of the group’s exiled figures worried about their future on Turkish soil.

Wishful thinking aside, Moscow will continue to push solely for its own interests in these discussions, which for the foreseeable future means empowering Assad.

New proposals by Palestinian commentators can give Abbas and other senior officials a viable framework for rescheduling premature elections and jumpstarting engagement with Israel, Egypt, and Jordan.

Three scholars explore the stunning breadth of Iranian dominance over Damascus and what this means for any U.S. plans to foster stability in Syria or reopen negotiations with Tehran.