Policy Analysis

Policy Analysis
SyriaUS Foreign Policy
Lifting US Sanctions on Syria: A New Chapter for Damascus and Beirut?
Jul 18, 2025Patricia Karam
In a May 13, 2025, speech in Riyadh, President Donald Trump surprised the world by pledging to lift all US sanctions on Syria. Trump’s unexpected announcement …
Policy Analysis
LebanonJustice, Equality, and Human Rights
Resumption of Beirut Port Blast Investigation Offers Lebanon New Hope
May 15, 2025Patricia Karam
Nearly five years after the devastating explosion at the Port of Beirut that killed some 220 people, injured some 7,000, and left a large portion of the city i…
Policy Analysis
LebanonIsraeli War Tactics and Genocide
The Impact of Israeli Cyber Operations on Hezbollah
Apr 2, 2025Amal Chmouny
Alongside its war on Gaza, Israel has executed an array of cyber-attacks against Hezbollah that have disrupted the group’s communication systems, carried out c…
Policy Analysis
LebanonDemocracy and Governance
Out With the Old, In With the New: Is There a New Hope for Lebanon?
Feb 6, 2025Patricia Karam
Following a surprising appointment as Lebanon’s new prime minister, independent jurist, academic, and former diplomat Nawaf Salam, finds himself enmeshed in th…
Policy Analysis
The Arab World
How Will 2025 Be Different in the Middle East? Perspectives on the New Year
Jan 15, 2025Khalil E. Jahshan Daniel Brumberg Dana El Kurd Imad K. Harb Patricia Karam Nabeel A. Khoury Yousef Munayyer Annelle Sheline
The monumental events that took place in the Middle East in 2024 augur radical changes in the region’s geopolitical environment. Israel’s ongoing genocidal war…
Policy Analysis
LebanonDemocracy and Governance
Lebanon’s Post-Hezbollah “Day After”
Jan 7, 2025Patricia Karam
The surprising fall of the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria on the heel of Hezbollah’s spectacular losses and, with it, the tremendous weakening of Ir…
Policy Analysis
LebanonGlobal Health and Health Policy
Lebanon’s Health System: Decades of Struggle and a Year of Israeli Attacks
Jan 2, 2025Yara M. Asi
On September 17 and 18, 2024, a coordinated Israeli attack turned pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon into explosive devices, killing at least 42 people and i…
Policy Analysis
LebanonIdentity Politics and Sectarianization
Hezbollah’s Likely Demise and Lebanon’s Uncertain Future
Dec 4, 2024Patricia Karam
Israel's approval of a US-brokered ceasefire with Hezbollah set the stage for an end to fourteen months of fighting between the two parties, ushering in the po…
Policy Analysis
Palestine/IsraelInternational Law
Gaza and Lebanon: No Distinction Between Civilian and Military Targets
Nov 22, 2024Jonathan Kuttab
One of the consequences of the present Israeli war on Gaza has been the blatant erosion of respect for and belief in international legal principles and institu…
Policy Analysis
Palestine/IsraelConflicts and Conflict Resolution
Important Conclusions from Israel’s Wars on Palestine and Lebanon
Oct 25, 2024Imad K. Harb
It is hard to overemphasize the importance of Israel’s killing of Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and Chairman of Hamas’s Political Bureau Yahya…
From our Affiliates
LebanonConflicts and Conflict Resolution
GCC Responses to Israeli Aggression on Lebanon: Strategic Concerns and Regional Implications
Oct 9, 2024The Unit for Political Studies
The positions of the GCC countries toward Israel's war on Lebanon are appear divided. All share a deep concern about escalation and its potential impact on the…
Policy Analysis
LebanonConflicts and Conflict Resolution
The War Israel Wants but Hezbollah Rejects
Sep 20, 2024Imad K. Harb
The Israeli war on Hezbollah has just entered another deadly phase characterized by the sophisticated, but criminally minded, use of cyber warfare to detonate …