Middle East Institute

July 28, 2022 | Ivana Stradner, Iulia Sabina-Joja

Russia Created a Refugee Crisis, and Now Putin Is Weaponizing It

With Russia causing two migration crises—one by bloodshed in the east and the other by famine in the south—the United States must act now.

December 15, 2021 | Aykan Erdemir, Tuğba Tanyeri-Erdemir

Bottom-Up Hope: Local Governments Bolster Religious Pluralism in Turkey

When powerful states and their proxies intensify religious persecution worldwide and democratic governments under a neo-isolationist spell look the other way, where can vulnerable religious minorities find...

September 30, 2021 | Aykan Erdemir |

Spectacles of Tolerance: The Precarity of Turkey’s Religious Minorities in the Era of Neo-Ottoman Delusions

Excerpt Turkey watchers continue to debate whether neo-Ottomanism, an ideological proclivity to exalt and revive an imagined Ottoman past and its traditions of religio-political authority and domination,...

April 30, 2021 | Benjamin Weinthal, Alireza Nader

An Oberlin Professor Is Under Fire for His Past

Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, Iran's former ambassador to the U.N., has been accused of trying to cover up a 1988 massacre of political prisoners.

April 6, 2021 | Morgan Lorraine Viña, Simone Ledeen

Biden’s policy shift in Yemen courts environmental disaster

Excerpt A major disaster is unfolding in slow motion, with the international community seemingly incapable of taking any action other than public hand wringing. A crippled oil tanker, FSO Safer, has been...

June 15, 2020 | Thomas Joscelyn |

Taliban falsely claims al Qaeda doesn’t exist in Afghanistan

General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), questioned the Taliban’s willingness to take action against al Qaeda during an online conference held last week. The...

September 15, 2018 | Tzvi Kahn |

The U.S. Should Sanction Iran’s Key Slush Fund and Its Brutal Custodian

At first, he couldn’t identify the sound. But Amir Atiabi, an inmate in Iran’s Gohardasht Prison, was curious. Over the course of several nights in 1988, he ...

August 8, 2018 | Aykan Erdemir, Gonul Tol

U.S. Sanctions on Turkish Ministers Require Recalibration

The Trump administration has now made good on its threat to sanction Turkey if Ankara refused to release an American pastor from custody. In an unprecedented move, the U.S. Treasury Department ...

January 3, 2018 | Aykan Erdemir

Watching Turkey’s Descent Into Islamist Dictatorship

“Deep trouble” in Turkey’s relationships with Europe and the United States was a recurring theme in the December address of Michael Meier — representative to America and C...

February 9, 2017 | Tony Badran |

Assad’s Fundraiser at the World Bank

For all the controversy surrounding it, there was one silver lining to President Trump’s now suspended ...

November 21, 2016 | Tony Badran |

Obama Tries to Pin his Syria Policy on Trump

Talking to reporters in Germany on Thursday, President Barack Obama expressed the ho...

June 13, 2011 | National Review Online

The Company He Keeps

Meet Obama's circle: The same old America-hating Left.

June 16, 2010 | The Long War Journal

Current State of Afghan War Mirrors Iraq Circa 2005-2006

This morning I had the opportunity to listen in on a panel called "Will Pakistan be Democratic in 2020?" that was hosted by The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (full disclosure, I am a...

April 20, 2010 | Christian Science Monitor

Obama’s First Big Diplomacy Test: Iran

Iran is shaping up to be the defining test of President Obama's engage-our-enemies diplomacy. As Mr. Obama has pursued his foreign policy in the initial weeks of his presidency, he has begun...

October 22, 2009 | Middle East Quarterly

The Strategic Challenge of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab

Since emerging from an era of colonialism under Italy and Britain, Somalia has passed through military dictatorship, famine, and civil war to regional fragmentation. In the modern period, America...

October 7, 2008 |

Why Won’t Obama Talk About Columbia?

Barack Obama does not want to talk about Columbia. Not even to his good friends at the New York Times, who’ve so reliably helped him bleach away his past — a past neck-deep in the har...

November 26, 2006 | HS Today

Education Versus Jihad

In the few hours following the terrorist attacks on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, media in the United States began looking for answers. The very first series of questions asked by all was indica...

May 31, 2006 | MERIA Journal |

Putin and Russia’s Middle Eastern Policy

Auhtored by Ilya Bourtman Russian President Vladimir Putin is currently pursuing a two track policy towards the Middle East, allowing Russia to develop friendly ties with Israel...

September 28, 2003 | Clifford D. May

Spy Games

It's the top story in the Washington Post this morning as well as in many other media outlets. Who leaked the fact that the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV worked for the CIA? What also...

May 4, 2003 |

North of the Border

By Stephen Schwartz WHILE WESTERN MEDIA and politicians peddle their alarums in the aftermath of Iraq's liberation, focusing on Syria and Iran, attention should also be paid to Saud...