"Iran is the world’s most conspiracy-minded country" I declared in my book, The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy . An entire chapter of that study focused on the Islamic revolution of 1978-79, documenting how "Regardless of political complexion, Iranians…

A cold war is “the key to understanding the Middle East in the 21st century.” So argue Yigal Carmon and three of his colleagues at the Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI) in a recent study, “An Escalating Regional…

Does terrorism work, meaning, does it achieve its perpetrators’ objectives?

With terror attacks having become a routine and nearly daily occurrence, especially in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the conventional wisdom holds that terrorism works very well. For example, the late Ehud…

Smack on its 60th anniversary, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization finds itself facing a completely novel problem – that of radical Islam, as represented by the Republic of Turkey, within its own ranks.

Ankara joined NATO in 1951 and shortly after…

Palestinians have so loudly and for so long (nearly a century) rejected Zionism that the Mufti Amin al-Husseini, Yasir Arafat, and Hamas may appear to command unanimous Palestinian support.

But no: polling research finds that a substantial minority of Palestinians, about…

With Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, head of the Likud Party, about to become Israel’s next prime minister, one wonders whether he will stick to his more controversial campaign promises – not that of confronting the Iranian threat, which is widely backed,…

On the occasion of its launch in 2004 from near Buffalo, New York, the Muslim television channel "Bridges TV" won the enthusiastic support of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s media assistant, Stuart Holliday : "I laud your expression of interest in…

Why, just two weeks into a 209-week term, assess a new American presidents record on so esoteric a subject as the Middle East and Islam? In Barack Obamas case, because of:

(1) A contradictory record: His background brims over with wild-eyed…

 With Democrats now in charge of both the executive and legislative branches, what changes might one expect in U.S. policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict?

Personnel appointments so far fit the center-left mold. On the plus side, as analyst Steven Rosen observes,…

Two events earlier this month summed up differing views of George W. Bush’s Middle East record.

In one, Bush himself offered a valedictory speech, declaring that “the Middle East in 2008 is a freer, more hopeful, and more promising place than…