Policy Analysis

The self-styled Iraqi "resistance" has hinted at a desire to end the tit-for-tat sequence of strikes with the United States and return to cost-free counter-Israel operations.

Groups supported by Iran and the Assad regime have found some local traction due in part to grievances against the Kurdish-led SDF’s governance strategy in Arab tribal areas.

The regime’s increasing violence against a once-loyal Druze minority is yet another reminder that “normalizing” relations with Assad will never yield the stability neighboring states crave.

The path towards reconciliation between Ankara and Damascus faces numerous obstacles, linked to a history of mistrust and significant gaps in major contentious issues.

Russia is taking advantage of recent coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to embed itself in the Sahel. However, its indiscriminate counterterrorism tactics come with a cost for their forces and the regimes it protects.

Because the landscape has shifted since April, the Biden administration’s previous script for preventing irreversible escalation may no longer work.

An Israeli general and two former U.S. officials discuss the prospects of an imminent Iranian attack and what can be done to deter it.

Reconstruction can’t happen until thousands of dud bombs and other explosives are cleared from the urban rubble—a task that faces formidable shortfalls in funding, manpower, and other resources.

Even with U.S. intercession, the assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran could harden Ankara’s stance against Israel and spur a fatal cycle of diplomatic and economic retaliation.

Amid a flurry of U.S. military deployments and allied diplomacy, it is uncertain if an embarrassed Tehran will attack Israel, but one thing is clear: allowing it to do so again without meaningful consequences would set a dangerous precedent.

With no prospects for a political solution to the Syrian crisis, the Turkish government's insistence on maintaining its previous policies in northern Syria and its usurpation of the Syrian people's decision-making warns of dire consequences for an already fragile relationship.

Three counterterrorism experts and former officials discuss a powerful new interactive tool and its implications for mobilizing international pressure on Iran and its proxies.

The small but significant step could facilitate U.S. technology transfers to the kingdom, said to be a key element in any potential Israeli-Saudi normalization deal—but proliferation concerns persist.

A mechanism for diverting Iraqi government oil to militias through non-operational factories was recently exposed, creating a panic shutdown of asphalt plants run by Iran-backed terrorists.

Reaching a Gaza ceasefire and Israeli-Saudi normalization deal will require intense, well-coordinated diplomatic efforts in a condensed timeline, but the administration can do it with help from the “Arab Quint.”

The 30,000-strong militia has ground forces massed along the frontier, preventing evacuated Israelis from returning home and increasing the risk of a war that both sides would rather postpone for now.

In this chapter from the Jihadist Governance and Statecraft compilation, Mattew Levitt examines how Hezbollah exercises authority from outside the halls of formal state power.

In this chapter from the Jihadist Governance and Statecraft compilation, Devorah Margolin explores how Hamas has balanced the contradictions between the demands of governance and of continued terrorist operations.

In this chapter from the Jihadist Governance and Statecraft compilation, Aaron Y. Zelin explores how Afghanistan's one-time insurgents are making greater use of key instruments of state.

Access this powerful tool, which maps over forty-five years of Iranian clandestine operations around the globe.