American policymakers might be forgiven for losing focus on one of the world’s vital strategic crossroads. For much of the past three decades, the Eastern Mediterranean has effectively been a backwater for U.S. national security. But profound geopolitical transformations once…
U.S. special operations forces are adored by politicians and the public, their reputations burnished by feats like the raid on Osama bin Laden, the sea rescue of the Maersk Alabama’s captain and countless other daring operations against high-value targets around the…
Some Washington Mid-East experts have criticized the Trump administration’s recent Bahrain economic workshop for Middle East peace. Critics have accused the White House of engineering a Marshall Plan instead of forging a political peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian…
The major powers have a strong interest in preventing a return to fighting and further instability in the region. They should cooperate. The Syrian war was largely over by the end of 2018, but the country remains a bleeding hotspot…
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long seemed invincible in Turkey. But his strongman persona masked the growing weaknesses of his rule, many of which were laid bare by the mayoral election in Istanbul. The resounding victory by Ekrem Imamoglu of…
In a move that could significantly shorten its path to a bomb, Iran announced another expansion of its nuclear activities starting Sunday in breach of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). As its foreign minister intimated, this could be part…
Less than 48 hours after three commercial jets hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, I helped the U.S. Air Force open the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar as the general in charge of…
American diplomats have been quietly mediating a resolution to the Israeli-Lebanese maritime border dispute, an important step to avoiding another war between these two countries. However, even if American mediators can resolve the dispute, Hezbollah’s presence in southern Lebanon keeps alive the…
Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently released a report accusing both Hamas and the Israeli government of committing war crimes regarding an incident in May 2019. During these hostilities, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) struck 350 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad…
The recent oil tanker attacks in the Gulf of Oman reinforce the need to reestablish a highly visible U.S. naval deterrent in the Middle East. For eight months last year, no aircraft carrier strike group plied the region, the longest…