The care and handling of intelligence information is as much art as anything else. It has been estimated that 70% or more of “finished intelligence” — that is, the reports and analyses that go forward to policymakers — derives from open sources and diplomatic reporting, meaning that much of what a policymaker reads can also be found in the media. The art of intelligence is to understand the value that is added by the nuggets of information gained from human or other sources. In this respect, the whole finished product must be treated as sensitive because of the way the ...
Palestinian leaders hit the headlines twice this week—once on May 3, when President Mahmoud Abbas was welcomed to the White House by President Trump and two days earlier, on May 1, when outgoing Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal launched the movement’s new “Document of General Principles and Policies” at a press conference in Doha.
The Washington presidential summit understandably garnered more attention, but it is the Hamas Doha document that may well be remembered as having a more significant and lasting impact on the Palestinian future and even on prospects for ...
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will visit the White House on Wednesday to meet with President Donald Trump and his administration.
While the meeting signals the administration's commitment to dialogue and engagement with the Palestinians, it could also present a valuable opportunity to explore meaningful and effective ways to establish a just peace by ending the occupation and ensuring the establishment of a viable sovereign Palestinian state.
If Trump is truly committed to "striking a deal," then it is imperative he distance himself from the repeat...
Six years after the fall of Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, Libya remains mired in conflict and political chaos. Devoid of any central authority or national security structure, the Libyan state now exists only in name. It is time for a new approach – one that the United States should actively support.
To be sure, Libya does have an internationally recognized government: the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), born of the December 2015 Libyan Political Agreement, signed in Skhirat, Morocco, under the auspices of the United Nations. But not only did that government recei...
On the surface, much of President Trump’s foreign policy seems to be reverting to the mainstream upon first contact with reality. Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s horrific use of chemical weapons produced a quick military response, applauded across partisan lines in Washington. Relations with Russia have settled to predictably adversarial depths. The administration is full of appropriately reassuring words about NATO, and the one-China policy was safely back in place for the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Senior national security appointments have been mostly traditionalis...
US President Donald Trump has put on the back burner an executive order that would designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group. He should leave it there permanently. Inclusive governments that are seen to represent the overwhelmingly devout Muslim societies of the Arab world are a vital antidote to global jihadism.
To be sure, the Muslim Brotherhood has not always fully embodied democratic values. In Egypt, for example, President Mohamed Morsi’s government treated democracy as a winner-take-all proposition – and was ousted after little more than a year.
But addressi...
The Ultimate DealHenry Siegman
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London Review of Books
| March 24th 2017
Reactions by the international commentariat to Trump and Netanyahu’s joint press conference on 15 February focused largely on Trump’s pronouncements, specifically on what seemed to be his abandonment of America’s long-standing bipartisan support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. ‘I’m looking at two-state and one-state and I like the one that both parties like,’ he said. ‘I can live with either one.’ Given his ignorance of international affairs in general and the Middle East in particular, he probably had no idea of t...
