Events have moved almost at light speed in the first month of Donald Trump's term, making it difficult to assimilate relevant data points and analyses (see our tireless newspapers of record; there are too many to rehearse here). The centerpiece of the period was the resignation/firing of Michael Flynn, the president's national-security adviser. Flynn had allegedly reassured the Russian ambassador ...
Continue ReadingThe following is a transcript of the eighty-seventh in a series of Capitol Hill conferences convened by the Middle East Policy Council. The meeting was held at the ...
Continue ReadingAs the Syrian civil war reaches its sixth anniversary, it is increasingly clear how much the conflict has transformed the politics of the Middle East. Syria itself has ...
Continue ReadingTurkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been the leading Middle Eastern states seeking the overthrow of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Having set regime change as their goal in ...
Continue ReadingSyria's civil war has reinforced Iraqi state weakness and fears of partition along ethno-sectarian lines. The conflict has encouraged the proliferation of militias, refugee flows and Kurdish transnationalism, ...
Continue ReadingNowhere have the spillover effects of the overlapping domestic, regional and international war for Syria proved more devastating than in Lebanon.1 Whether in terms of increased sectarian agitation ...
Continue ReadingKurdish groups, both within Syria and throughout the Middle East, undoubtedly see the Syrian war as an opportunity to advance their goals of self-determination. The Kurdish autonomous region ...
Continue ReadingThe Syrian tragedy has induced rapid changes in the country’s social structure. Moreover, new forms of collective and individual authority tethered to the conflict have emerged.1 Both processes ...
Continue ReadingThe conflict over the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip has long been at a stalemate. While many issues make a two-state solution difficult, particularly the ...
Continue ReadingThe history of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or Ikhwan) movement in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has varied considerably among its six members. Influenced by distinct political, social ...
Continue ReadingQatar is a unique example of a small-state actor that has achieved rapid economic development domestically and nurtured a foreign policy with an international reach. The key driver ...
Continue ReadingPresidents typically see their national security adviser multiple times daily. Just as his predecessors did, President Donald J. Trump will count on his national security adviser to keep ...
Continue ReadingApproximately five weeks after winning the election, President-elect Donald Trump announced David Friedman as his choice to serve as envoy to Israel. The nominee — who supports expanding ...
Continue ReadingIn his 2016 book The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East, George Washington University political-science professor Marc Lynch notes, "This book has been painful ...
Continue ReadingThe Boy in the Mask: The Hidden World of Lawrence of Arabia, by Dick Benson-Gyles. The Lilliput Press, 2016. €25.00, hardcover.
"For Only Those Deserve the Name": T.E. ... Continue Reading