• Policy Analysis
    IranDemocracy and Governance

    Syria Peace Talks in Geneva: A Road to Nowhere

    Mar 27, 2017Radwan Ziadeh

    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…

  • Washington Policy Weekly
    IranConflicts and Conflict Resolution

    Congressional Update Week Ending March 24, 2017

    Mar 24, 2017Roxanne Perugino

    I. Syria(1) Remembering the Victims of Syria: On March 21, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), together with the US Holocaust Memorial, hosed a comm…

  • Policy Analysis
    LevantJustice, Equality, and Human Rights

    The Difficult Tasks for the Arab League

    Mar 22, 2017Imad K. Harb

    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…

  • Policy Analysis
    LebanonDemocracy and Governance

    Lebanon’s Oligarchy Consolidates Control over the Security Establishment

    Mar 22, 2017Joe Macaron

    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…

  • Op-Eds

    Mustafa Gurbuz: Turkey’s Kurdish conflict has surged again. Here is why

    Mar 21, 2017

    Since the end of a cease-fire between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish state in July 2015, thousands of Kurdish politicians, academics and ci…

  • Policy Analysis
    LevantInternational Law

    Turkey-Europe Tensions: Where are They Headed?

    Mar 21, 2017Mustafa Gurbuz

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

  • Washington Policy Weekly
    LevantMigrants, Refugees, and IDPs

    Congressional Update – Week Ending March 17, 2017

    Mar 17, 2017

    I. Courts Block President Trump’s Revised Executive Order on a Travel BanPresident Donald Trump’s revised March 6, 2017 Executive Order, which was scheduled to…

  • Policy Analysis
    LevantViolent Extremism

    The Arab World after ISIL’s Defeat

    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…

  • Policy Analysis
    LevantDemocracy and Governance

    Turnover: What Are the Implications of Recent and Upcoming Changes in Hamas?

    Mar 15, 2017Yousef Munayyer

    BackgroundSince its establishment in the 1980s, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, has increasingly become an important player in domestic …

  • Policy Analysis
    LevantDemocracy and Governance

    Why Federalism Is a Bad Idea for Syria

    Mar 13, 2017Radwan Ziadeh

    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.…

  • Op-Eds

    Radwan Ziadeh: Ending the Culture of Escaping Accountability in Syria (in Arabic)

    Mar 10, 2017Radwan Ziadeh

    The Prosecution of those responsible for war crimes in Syria is difficult due to Syria not being a signatory of the Rome Statute, and Russia's blocking of Secu…

  • Op-Eds

    Imad K. Harb: Can a Headless Chicken Continue to Lead the World?

    Mar 9, 2017Imad K. Harb

    Politics in the United States is in a state of unprecedented chaos and confusion not two months into the presidency of Donald Trump.Read more