by Mitchell Plitnick On December 31, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas closed out a year of stinging defeats by signing on to 18 international accords. Included among these was the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC).… Continue Reading
by Paul R. Pillar Americans are not very good at ending their involvement in wars. No, that’s not a pacifist statement about a need to stop fighting wars in general. It is instead an observation about how the United States,… Continue Reading
by Sara Vakhshouri The nearly 50-percent plunge in global oil prices since June 2014 has provoked a variety of analysis and speculation. Some see the hand of Saudi Arabia behind this drop, as part of an effort to squeeze Iran, its… Continue Reading
by Lara Friedman As anybody who follows Israeli-Palestinian issues knows, on December 31, 2014, after the UN Security Council rejected a Jordanian-backed resolution that would have imposed terms of reference and a timeline for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Palestinian President Abbas… Continue Reading
by Emile Nakhleh This year Arab political Islam will be greatly influenced by US regional policy, as it has been since the Obama administration came into office six years ago. Indeed, as the US standing in the region rose with… Continue Reading