By The Washington Institute
Podcast by The Washington Institute
Few countries from the Middle East or North Africa were invited to participate in the Biden administration's December Summit for Democracy, a telling reflection of regional politics a decade after the Arab Spring. Tunisia—once considered the only successful Arab democracy—recently...
Marking the release of Anna Borshchevskaya's groundbreaking new book on Russia's Putin-era Middle East Policy, the Institute senior fellow held a lively conversation with a leading scholar of the Russian military and a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow. In this...
Twenty years after the deadly terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, how has the global terrorist threat, and American strategy against it, evolved? And what lessons can we learn from the successes and failures of U.S. counterterrorism policy as we...
How will America’s choice to withdraw military forces from Afghanistan, and the manner of our withdrawal over the course of the last two presidential administrations, affect America’s standing in the wider Middle East? How will our partners and adversaries on...
To promote stability and other U.S. interests, Washington must reshape its approach to the increasingly complex staging ground for global competition that is the emerging Red Sea region. In the latest Middle East PolicyCast, Institute scholar Elana DeLozier expands on...
Two experts on security and political issues in the Middle East, Grant Rumley and Neri Zilber, share insights into the causes and outcomes of the May 2021 Hamas-Israel conflict in Gaza - and they offer policy advice for American, Israeli,...
How can the Biden administration build a mature, balanced relationship with Saudi Arabia? Institute executive director Robert Satloff, coauthor of a new study on the opportunities and challenges facing the Washington-Riyadh relationship, outlines that can secure American interests and help...
In a new paper from Amb. Dennis Ross, he argues that Iran, its nuclear program, and its threats to regional security will pose some of the toughest challenges for the incoming Biden administration. In this episode, we speak to Amb....
Israel has a couple of new friends in the Persian Gulf. On September 16, representatives from Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the Kingdom of Bahrain met at the White House, signing peace treaties that agree to fully normalize relations...
Lebanese Hezbollah has been well-known to Americans as a deadly terrorist group for nearly forty years, but there has never been an accessible, all-in-one record of Hezbollah’s global terrorist and criminal activity. Until now. Hezbollah expert Matthew Levitt this month...
What factors will shape Israel's decisionmaking, and how would unilateral annexation affect its relations with the Palestinians, Arab neighbors, Europe, and U.S. legislators? In this week's Middle East PolicyCast, we share a conversation between former U.S. peace process advisors David...
Military analyst Michael Eisenstadt details how the Islamic Republic of Iran operates in the gray zone between war and peace to manage escalation, leverages asymmetries to achieve disproportionate effects, and employs its hybrid force structure for maximum effect. The current...
In the last decade, Tunisia has been seen as both a democratic bright spot of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings and a major source of manpower for the Islamic State and other violent jihadist movements. How did this country of...
For two decades, rumors have swirled around the royal succession from Jordan’s King Hussein to his son, King Abdullah II. Hussein reinstated Abdullah as crown prince just days before Hussein died, a move that struck many at the time as...
The head of the UN team charged with monitoring each group assesses their prospects for bouncing back and recommends further steps that governments can take to counter them. Middle East PolicyCast: Conversations on Middle East issues from the Washington Institute for...
Listen to an exclusive press briefing on the Trump administration's newly announced peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Four expert, including former Palestinian and American peace negotiators and a veteran congressional foreign policy analyst, share their views of the ramifications...
Since 2016, statements from Riyadh have suggested that Saudi Arabia might be on the verge of reorienting its decades-long promotion of Salafism around the world. In a new Institute study titled "Course Correction: The Muslim World League, Saudi Arabia's Export...
The FBI’s top intelligence official shares his insights into how authorities and agencies are collaborating to keep the United States safe amid a shifting threat landscape. Middle East PolicyCast: Conversations on Middle East issues from the Washington Institute for Near...
"Decision Points" is a new Washington Institute podcast that provides fresh insights into critical moments in the U.S.-Israel relationship from prominent historians and policymakers. The series is hosted by Ziegler Distinguished Fellow David Makovsky, a renowned expert on U.S.-Israel relations,...
What is going on in Israeli politics? Two elections this year, both leaving no clear majority and a deadlocked parliament, a prime minister facing imminent criminal indictment, Israeli Arab leaders hinting at a willingness to join a Zionist government, and...
"Turkey more isolated, more alone, and more exposed to foreign policy threats than it has been for decades if not centuries." Soner Cagaptay, author of a new book on Turkish foreign policy, details the ways in which Recep Tayyip Erdogan...
What sets Israel's greatest leaders, Labour and Likud, apart from others? And can U.S. policy encourage wiser statesmanship from our Israeli allies? In this episode, David Makovsky and Ambassador Dennis Ross, veteran observers of and participants in the peace process,...
What are the consequences of the Iranian government's massive, systematic campaign to spread disinformation about religious minorities through social and traditional media? Three leading Iranian activists detail Tehran's campaign of slander and incitement and offer practical suggestions for how tech...
Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkote, IDF (ret.) delivered the 2019 Zeev Schiff Memorial Lecture on Middle East Security earlier this month. In his first public remarks since his retirement as chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, General Eizenkot detailed...
Jared Kushner, the senior advisor to President Donald Trump, was the keynote speaker of the Washington Institute's 2019 Soref Symposium dinner on May 2, 2019 in Washington, DC. Kushner was interviewed by Institute executive director Robert Satloff. Since becoming the...
A notably divisive Israeli campaign is coming down to its final hours. Will Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu survive the election, a likely corruption indictment, and a strong challenge by a new centrist party led by three former top IDF...
The Arab states of the Persian Gulf region perceive that U.S. interest in and commitment to their region is declining even as Russian and Chinese military and economic activity in the Middle East grows. As a result, the Gulf states...
Israel's April 2019 parliamentary elections feature two of the most significant developments in modern Israeli political history, says Institute scholar David Makovsky: The formation of a new opposition coalition featuring three recently former IDF commanders and the criminal indictment of...
American Middle East policy has focused on forging security and economic ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors. In a new report (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/reclamation), Joseph Braude documents growing opportunities for reclaiming cultural space for Arab-Israeli reconciliation. In this episode, Joseph joins...
Iran's latest missile tests point to a new generation of rocket, one potentially capable of delivering a first-generation nuclear warhead, and defeating advanced missile defenses, to targets up to 2,000 kilometers away with pinpoint accuracy. Farzin Nadimi, a longtime student...
Dana Stroul, The Washington Institute's newest research fellow, is a veteran Pentagon and U.S. Senate foreign policy staffer. In this podcast, Dana shares her insights about Capitol Hill's role in making foreign policy, from the fraying bipartisan consensus on vital...
"Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Period. It has held that dubious distinction for many years now and shows no sign of relinquishing the title." Speaking at The Washington Institute on November 13, State Department Counterterrorism Coordinator...
Since the Trump administration's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), November 4 has loomed large as the date on which significant U.S. sanctions on Iran, and on third parties doing business with Iran, return to force. Former Treasury Department...
Do the counterterrorism partnerships that Washington has developed with Middle Eastern states since the 9/11 attacks helped or hindered the global war on terror? Four leading CT scholars debate the past success and future utility of counterterrorism partnerships in this...
In early August, the Trump administration issued sanctions against Turkey for its continued detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson. Ties between the two governments have been under strain for years, but the latest incident has seemingly touched off the most...
When he passed away in May, Bernard Lewis—the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton and inaugural recipient of The Washington Institute’s Scholar-Statesman Award—left behind a legacy of unparalleled scholarly consequence that crossed disciplines, centuries, continents, governments,...
U.S. Army Lieutenant General Michael Nagata, director of strategic planning at the National Counterterrorism Center, delivered a hard-hitting address at the Institute earlier this month. After nearly two decades and much success, General Nagata said it's time for Americans to...
Barbara Leaf served as U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from 2014-2018 and recently joined The Washington Institute as Rosenblatt Distinguished Fellow. In this episode, Ambassador Leaf looks back at her time as American envoy in Abu Dhabi, what...
On June 24, Turks voted for president and parliament for the first time under their new constitution, handing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP party narrow victories that may reshape Turkish politics and society for years to come. Did...
How can policymakers deal with the urgent crises of the day without neglecting important issues of long-term strategy? Ambassador Dennis Ross has advised presidents from both parties since the 1980s, and he literally wrote the book on diplomacy and statecraft....
In a rare public address in Washington, D.C., Israel's defense minister explained his government's strategy for dealing with challenges including the emergence of a direct Iranian front to the north and recurrent mass protests along the Gaza border to the...
In military terms, what did the April 13 allied airstrikes on Syria accomplish? Will deterring the Assad regime from using chemical weapons change the Syrian battlefield? Veteran military analyst Michael Eisenstadt shares his insights into the tactical and strategic effects...
Amid dimming hopes for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and growing disarray in the Palestinian political scene, one bright spot remains the growing effectiveness and professionalism of the Palestinian Authority's 30,000-man security services. Neri Zilber and Ghaith al-Omari, coauthors of a new study...
David Cattler, the U.S. government's national intelligence manager for the Near East, recently shared a survey of the Middle East and American security and interests there. Will there be a "peace dividend" from the defeat of ISIS? What keeps the...
From February 12 to 14, representatives of governments, NGOs, and private businesses from around the world met in Kuwait for a conference that was intended to raise $85 billion for rebuilding destroyed areas and resettling displaced Iraqis in formerly ISIS-controlled...
What is the Shia Crescent, and how does Iran’s government exploit it to spread its influence and sow division across the region, from the Karun River to the Mediterranean Sea? Lebanese journalist Hanin Ghaddar, a visiting fellow at The Washington...
During an eventful week in the Middle East – which included President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the death of Yemen’s former president Saleh – a fifty-person delegation from The Washington Institute traveled to the capitals...
On December 5, 2017, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy honored three former Israeli ambassadors who fought for justice and fairness at the United Nations: Dore Gold, Dan Gillerman, and Ron Prosor. The annual Scholar-Statesman Awards ceremony, held in...
Do Turkey’s political and social upheavals following that country’s 1980 military coup have anything to tell us about Turkey under President Erdogan today? Journalist Ece Temelkuran believes so, and in her new novel, “The Time of Mute Swans,” she tells...
