Policy Analysis

Israel’s ‘Begin Doctrine,’ a commitment to prevent rival regional powers from acquiring nuclear weapons, risks becoming unenforceable, but it’s not clear what comes next.

A reliable new Lebanese public opinion poll, conducted in November, shows that a large majority of the country’s Shiites retain positive views of both Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons—even as major anti-government protests include many Shiite participants for the first time. This surprising finding casts doubt on speculation that Hezbollah

Since the beginning of the year, Algerians have repeatedly come to the streets to challenge their political system. Some have used these ongoing protests, also known as Smile Revolution or Hirak, to celebrate their current victories while others have used the occasion to call for a complete change in the

Angry over Iranian militia abuses and Baghdad’s sundry failures, a number of powerful tribes are setting aside their traditional sectarian loyalties and pushing to safeguard their basic needs, sometimes violently.

On November 23, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Iraq for an unannounced trip that included a visit to meet with the President of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) Nechirvan Barzani. In the published White House remarks of the meeting, one sentence asserted a sense of confidence in the

Next week, Algeria will hold its first elections in decades where the former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika will not be a candidate. While new elections had been previously announced earlier on July 4, the constitutional council decided to postpone them due to a lack of registered candidates. Even so, Algerians continue

The timing of the Iranian government decision to lift gasoline subsidies, which has effectively doubled the cost of fuel on Iranian motorists, raises fundamental questions about the Tehran regime’s political calculus. Despite protests raging in nearby Iraq featuring open and persistent rejection of Iranian meddling and influence, and despite a

As its concerns about domestic dissent and Western naval activity grow, Tehran may once again try to divert attention from the unrest at home by launching attacks abroad.

Bahrain’s prime minister, Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, has held his position since 1971, the year his country gained independence from Britain, but he is now eighty-four and evidently in uncertain health. Potential candidates to replace him include Crown Prince Salman or even a much younger nephew, Nasser bin Hamad, mirroring the generational handover in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. But the Khawalids, an influential, once-sidelined branch of the ruling family, also merit attention as Bahrain nears the end of an era.

In February, millions of Algerians went to the streets to protest against Bouteflika’s fifth bid for presidency after ruling the country for twenty years. What started as a spontaneous political movement against Bouteflika quickly transformed into popular demand for a radical political change. Even so, Algerians have been able to

The deployment of Kremlin-linked mercenaries will make a costly civil war even more difficult to end.

Throughout 2016 and 2017, statements from Riyadh suggested that Saudi Arabia might be on the verge of reorienting its decades-long promotion of Salafism around the world. Given the sheer scale of the kingdom’s support for Islamic institutions over the years, the ripple effects of such a shift would be profound

The Supreme Leader faces tough choices about who to blame for the protests, and what impact they should have on policy toward the United States.

An expert testifies on the concrete steps Washington can take to ensure that a credible, technocratic government forms in Beirut, and that the Lebanese Armed Forces protect civilians from Hezbollah-led reprisals.