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Middle East Task Force
The American Strategy Program’s Middle East Task Force seeks to inform and deepen the debate on American policy towards the Middle East both here in Washington and across the United States. Our task is to advance sensible debate and offer strategic solutions for resolving long-running conflicts in the Middle East, and core among them the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Within the American Strategy Program, this initiative will seek to draw on the moderate debate from a region of increasing importance to America’s strategic interests and to international peace and security, through dialogue, policy research, events and media that target practitioners, policy makers, opinion leaders, the American public, and the international community. Working closely with partner institutions in the United States and abroad, the initiative is laying the groundwork for stability, security, and eventually a sustainable peace that serves U.S., Israeli, Palestinian and global interests.
In a new public opinion poll before Iran's critical June 12 presidential election, by large margins, most Iranians said they support an American-Iranian rapprochement for bringing a new era of peace to the Middle East. Surveyed on a wide range of issues, Iranians overwhelmingly favor better relations with the United States and greater democracy for Iran.
The morning after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds his own formula for embracing the two-state solution - perhaps in Cairo next week or in Washington the week after - will we wake up to a new Middle East? I somehow doubt it. There may be internal political criticism (which Netanyahu can harness) and some may call his move courageous, but the focus will soon shift to settling into a diplomatic process in which the ultimate goal of two states is… more
President Obama's special peace envoy, former Sen. George Mitchell, is just wrapping up his latest visit to the Middle East. It's his third trip since being appointed and this time in addition to Israel, the West Bank, and Egypt, included Saudi Arabia and North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria), with an emphasis on a comprehensive regional peace, building on the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002. (Mitchell has yet to visit Damascus or Beirut, something unlikely to take place until after… more
There's a reason no one has ever accused Israeli leaders of being
shy. When U.S. President Barack Obama appointed Sen. George Mitchell as his
envoy on Middle East peace, he made a point of saying that a two-state solution
was the best way to safeguard U.S.
interests and secure Israel's
future. And yesterday in Jerusalem,
as the new Israeli government took office, the new prime minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu, began making his counterpoints.
As President Obama sits down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, beginning an intense two week engagement with Middle East leaders, the new release of a Zogby Interactive survey helps clarify the political landscape here in the United States.
On
the eve of the trips to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak, the Obama administration will begin to articulate and
get into the weeds on a new Middle East peace policy. Next Monday, May
11th at 11:45am, the New America Foundation will preview these
visits--what might happen, what should happen, and what it all means.
With a weak and divided leadership
amongst the Palestinians, a new right wing government in Israel, and recurring political instability
throughout the broader Middle East, the
salience of different types of Islamist groups on regional and international
politics is not likely to be on the wane anytime soon. Policy wonks and
diplomats in Europe and the United States continue to debate how
to respond to the continued successes of such groups.
On March 5th, the New America Foundation hosted an event featuring Congressmen Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Brian Baird (D-WA), who discussed their recent trip to Gaza.
