Analysis
- Post-9/11 Rebuffs Set U.S.-Iran Relations on Downward Spiral
- Analysis | Sep 8, 2011
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Of all the mistakes and missed opportunities that have characterised U.S. foreign policy since Sep. 11, 2001, few may have been as consequential as the failure to improve relations with Iran.
Had the George W. Bush administration responded to repeated overtures from Tehran, it might have cemented a powerful ally against Al-Qaeda, had an easier time pacifying Iraq and reduced Iranian motivation to acquire nuclear weapons and oppose Arab-Israeli peace.
Unlike the reaction in
- Ratcheting Up Pressure on Syria’s Assad
- Analysis | Aug 18, 2011
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President Barack Obama today issued a call for Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad to step down. “The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way,” the statement read. “His calls for dialogue and reform have rung hollow while he is imprisoning, torturing, and slaughtering his own people. We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of
- Challenging the Insupportable Arguments against Palestinian Statehood
- Analysis | Aug 10, 2011
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In their near-hysterical efforts to prevent Palestinians from asking the United Nations to recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination and statehood in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel and the United States have put forward a number of insupportable arguments that cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.
The claim that the UN is not the appropriate address for bringing about Palestinian statehood that underlies the various legal, political and prudential arguments mustered against the Palestinian
- The Enemy of Iran’s Enemy
- Analysis | Aug 5, 2011
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Despite the alarmist headlines, no one should have been shocked by last week’s U.S. Treasury Department designation of a Syrian based in Iran as a conduit for sending money and personnel to al Qaeda.
Iran has had links to members of what became known as al Qaeda since the early 1990s, when both had a presence in Sudan. What many may not know is that the United States missed several opportunities to divide the two and gain custody of
- No More Coups d’État in Turkey
- Analysis | Aug 3, 2011
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The era of military interference in politics is ending for good in Turkey. Almost the entire top military brass stepped down last week in protest over what Chief of the General Staff Isik Kosaner called government and government-aligned media efforts “to turn the great nation against their armed forces.” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan readily accepted the resignations and this week will name the replacements.
But these developments are not black and white. The dated
- Why Obama must be cautious on Syria
- Analysis | Aug 3, 2011
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As a brutal, bloody assault on anti-government protesters in Syria heads into its fourth day, pundits in Washington are training their rhetorical guns on President Barack Obama, lacerating his administration for its perceived paralysis.
The latest example is Elliot Abrams, a former official in the administations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, who rips Washington’s response to the uprising as “slow and unsteady” in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal. Danielle Pletka, in an overheated
- The Middle East’s New Game
- Analysis | Aug 3, 2011
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MADRID – Whether or not the Arab Spring will usher in credible democracies across the Arab world remains uncertain. But, while the dust has not yet settled after months of turmoil in Tunis, Cairo, and elsewhere, the Arab revolts have already had a massive impact on the strategic structure of the Middle East.
Until recently, the region was divided into two camps: an incoherent and weakened moderate Arab alignment, and an “Axis of Resistance,” formed
- Two Marches, Two Futures for Jerusalem
- Analysis | Jul 14, 2011
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One of the oddities of life in Jerusalem is that everyone knows where the future border will run between the Palestinian East and the Israeli West—despite the tiresome insistence of the Israeli government that the city will never again be divided. For example, north of the Old City the line will correspond more or less to what is now called Road Number One, a four-lane road that runs roughly north to south until it
- Ambassador to Syria Visits Hama amid Protests
- Analysis | Jul 14, 2011
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Last week U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford visited Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city. Demonstrations in Hama against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime have been growing for weeks amid larger protests that have gripped the country since March of this year.
Hama has a significant place in the modern history of the Middle East. It was there in February 1982 that the regime of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, crushed an antigovernment insurgency with artillery, tanks, and
- Iran sees an existential threat in Syria’s popular uprisings
- Analysis | Jul 14, 2011
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The Iranian government is worried about the demonstrations in Syria, and the possible fall of Syrian president Bashar Al Assad.
Such concerns are valid.
The Assad family has been a staunch ally of the Islamic Republic since the early 1980s. The fall of Mr Al Assad could have numerous negative implications for Iran’s government in terms of foreign policy influence. First and foremost is the question of access to millions of dollars worth of investment in Syria, in