Publications

Now that the Palestinians are potentially losing their diplomatic foothold in Washington, they may finally decide that the United States is withdrawing from ne…

Clear statements from the White House and the Department of State appear to have curbed the Saudi surge in Beirut and toned down Riyadh’s rhetoric against the …

The last session of the second annual conference of Arab Center Washington DC, held on October 26, 2017, concentrated on policy recommendations for the future.…

The Fatah-Hamas reconciliation agreement is the product of political manipulation between parties that lack confidence in each other’s strategic objectives. Th…

The Islamic State’s defeat in Raqqa was met with widespread approval among all Syrians, but the Kurds’ control of the liberated city and its surroundings promp…

Given the current status quo in Lebanon, the best American and Saudi pressure can do is to make the country’s political environment unbearable for Hezbollah.

Turkey may feel that it has to impose punitive measures against Iraqi Kurdistan over the referendum but countervailing Turkish domestic political conditions ma…

President Abbas’s speech before the United Nations was true to the Palestinian essentials of appealing for justice in Palestine, denouncing Israel’s excesses a…

While pivotal for Jordan’s and Iraq’s economies, the recent re-opening of the Amman-Baghdad highway has strategic and security implications for faraway powers …

Syria’s developments regarding the Islamic State’s expected demise and the Astana meeting should not be taken to signal an end to the country’s war which has l…

The legacy of authoritarianism, the rise of sectarian sentiments, ethno-nationalist aspirations, communal grievances about government neglect, and outside inte…

In the long run, the risks of confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah may largely depend on how the US-Russia deal will unfold in southern Syria.

Senators have agreed to revise a bill that will put the Palestinian Authority on notice, conditioning US aid to the PA on ending payments to Palestinian prison…

The measure of success for Hariri’s visit to Washington is his ability to convince US officials that the status quo is the best Lebanon can do considering the …

The Arab Peace Initiative has not gone anywhere since it was launched in 2002. Developments in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict do not inspire confidence that …

Turkey finds itself in a strained position in post-Islamic State Syria and Iraq. It lacks leverage with Russia, the United States, and Iran and fears Kurdish a…

The recent ceasefire agreement for southern Syria and the Syrian regime’s military campaigns may be turning points in Jordan’s position on the war in Syria.

The Kurdish decision to hold a referendum on independence from Iraq may bring happiness to the Kurds but will come at a heavy price for the Kurdish leadership.

Ankara’s policy toward the Gulf crisis is shaped by economic and strategic concerns as well as fear that the same allegations against Qatar could be directed t…

As a seventh round of peace talks is announced, the United States and Russia clash over Syria and the GCC crisis remains unresolved. What is the impact of conf…

The two-state solution will allow Israel as an apartheid state to rule over a smaller portion of historical Palestine but will not be a just solution for the c…

It is doubtful that the current political climate in the United States is conducive to the kind of effort required to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

After fifty years of the 1967 war that changed the map of the Middle East and destroyed the Arab republican nationalist regimes, the Question of Palestine rema…

Arab normalization with Israel is a shortsighted policy on the part of governments, organizations, and individuals. Such a policy poses a risk to both the Pale…

Securing the Damascus-Baghdad highway and deterring Iran’s regional activities might lead to a direct US involvement in the Syrian war.

Egypt and Turkey, both staunch US allies, have found themselves locked in a war of words—and worse—for nearly four years since the overthrow of President Moham…

President Trump’s speech on better relations with Muslims exposed flaws and gaping holes the Administration will have to correct if it wants to advance its int…

Trump’s speech in Saudi Arabia received praise and acclaim but it is hard to see if the president has indeed changed his opinion about Islam and Muslims.

When Arab citizens took to the streets in peaceful uprisings throughout 2011, their demands included “freedom,” “justice,” and “dignity.” Their governments rea…

A structural change in Turkey’s political system is gradually forcing serious changes in the country’s foreign policy toward Syria, the Gulf countries, Russia,…

Lebanon’s sectarian consensus rule raises questions about the functionality of the country’s political system. An agreement on its new electoral law is needed …

Confusion engulfs the establishment of de-escalation zones in Syria as Russia advocates for them and the Syrian opposition expresses doubt about their efficacy.

Projecting the image of political stability and steadiness in Washington is paramount for US policy in the Middle East. There is no room for second-guessing th…

Realities on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territories and an obvious pro-Israel American bias dash any hope for an equitable peace deal from the Trum…

It is feared that forced displacement of Syrians as a way of protecting vulnerable civilians may result in creating pure sectarian enclaves, making partition e…

Since becoming Turkey’s president in July 2014, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has pursued a protracted campaign to win constitutional changes that would grant him more …

Arab autocrats can no longer argue that Arabs are satisfied with authoritarian rule. New social movements have emerged after the Arab Spring advocating for hum…

As the 2016 US presidential campaign wound its way through a long string of primaries, fundraisers, and an almost unimaginable marathon of candidate debates, d…

As a limited attack on a Syrian military base, the American operation is not likely to rise to the status of being a game changer in Syria.

As the Syrian civil war grinds on into a seventh year, a Kurdish autonomous region controlled by the People’s Protection Units becomes more probable in norther…

On March 22nd, the foreign ministers of the Global Coalition to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) concluded their meeting in Washington, D…

On March 3, 2017, the United Nations’ Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, concluded the last round of Syria peace negotiations in Geneva by saying tha…

As the Arab League limps through its eighth decade, its problems increase in number and intensity while the Arab state system continues to be burdened with pol…

After an impasse of nearly four years, on March 8 the Lebanese government announced a sectarian quota deal to fill the security establishment's leadership posi…

The escalation of tensions between Turkish and Dutch authorities seems to have played well in domestic political calculations in Turkey and the Netherlands. Tu…

Current efforts to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) will, with time and sustained commitment, eventually lead to the physical destruction…

In the middle of the discussion about transition in Syria, Russia proposed the idea of a federal republic, according to deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov.…

The Syrian war and ensuing crisis in Iraq have put Turkey and Iran in an unprecedented sectarian rivalry. Competition over Iraqi Kurdistan will be a major test…

J Street, the liberal left-of-center Jewish pro-peace, pro-Israel organization held its sixth annual conference at the end of February in Washington, DC. Over …

img { margin: 5px; padding: 5px;}Since October 2016, the Iraqi government, supported by the US military, has waged one of its most difficult battles t…

As paramilitary organizations go, Lebanon’s Hezbollah has achieved resounding success since its establishment by the revolutionary Iranian regime, which was ne…

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes to Washington this week to officially reset US-Israeli relations after the chill of the last few years of the Obama Adm…

In what was described as a working visit, Jordan’s King Abdullah II arrived on January 30, 2017, and became the first Arab leader to come to Washington since t…

Masoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraqi Kurdistan, has expressed his expectation for “a big change” in US policy under P…