Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From Matthew Levitt U.S. and international efforts to combat terrorist financing are a little understood—and often under-appreciated—aspect of the global counterterrorism campaign. With this in mind, soon after rejoining The Washington Institute after serving in the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Michael Jacobson and I decided that it would be worthwhile to […]

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From Daniel Byman Terrorism watchers repeatedly warned that Al Qaeda might strike in the days leading up to election day yet, thankfully, we have reached November 4 without incident. Al Qaeda’s logic for striking seems straightforward. An attack would dominate media coverage at a time when world (not just U.S.) attention is focused on the […]

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From Michael Horowitz Lindsey O’Rourke’s recent op-ed in the New York Times, “Behind the Woman Behind the Bomb,” is an interesting attempt to describe some of the issues surrounding the use of female suicide bombers in Iraq and elsewhere. As she points out, many of the groups that have utilized suicide terrorism have employed female […]

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In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has offered a parting statement under the title “Rethinking the National Interest: American Realism for a New World.” The section on the Middle East includes an elusive passage that would seem to acquiesce in the political inclusion of violent groups. The Rice quote […]

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From Daniel Byman Middle Eastern governments have long supported terrorist groups as part of their foreign polices. States funded Palestinian militants, sheltered violent opposition groups confronting rival governments, and otherwise bolstered substate groups that regularly used terrorism. Regimes supported terrorists to fight Israel, demonstrate their revolutionary credentials, and weaken one another in their deadly geopolitical […]

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MESH invites selected authors to offer original first-person statements on their new books—why and how they wrote them, and what impact they hope and expect to achieve. Matthew Levitt is senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a member of MESH. His forthcoming book is Negotiating Under Fire: Preserving Peace Talks […]

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From Philip Carl Salzman After modest initiatives in recent days by the Lebanese government to restrict the independent operations of Hezbollah, fighters of Hezbollah and Amal flooded into the streets of west Beirut, attacked and dispersed government fighters, set up road blocks, and occupied government and media offices. The Druze and Christian militias did not […]

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