For the first time in 20 years, Saudi Arabia has named an ambassador to Iraq. For years the Saudis resisted U.S. entreaties to take this step, and the current relationship between these two most important Arab countries in the Gulf has not been warm, so the timing is curious and...

More than three decades after the Revolution of 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran Army and the IRGC remain entangled in a rivalry which the Army — should the hitherto trend continue — is bound to lose.

Two decades later we can see how many Americans, including our leaders, drew the wrong lessons from Desert Storm--creating myths that haunt us to this day.

Syria has always been among the Middle East's most repressive regimes. Any hope that Bashar al-Assad would usher in reform were naïve to begin with, the stuff of diplomats' fantasies. The question of what might come after Assad is a difficult one for American diplomats who have spent far more time trying to engage Assad and his functionaries than in reaching out to the Syrian opposition.

The current administration plan foresees thousands of American civilians going into Iraq in 2012. Of the many problems with this plan, a few stand out. We have been hearing about "civilian surges" into Iraq and Afghanistan for years, yet the nondefense contributions to such surges have been limited, slow to arrive, and painful to maintain.

Fifty-seven years ago, an armistice ended the fighting in Korea, yet when the war was over, the United States did not abandon South Korea. Similar considerations apply to Iraq today.

General Raymond Odierno recently announced that the surge of forces into Iraq has been completed and that the expected increase in operations has begun. Since President George W. Bush announced the new strategy in January, we have already seen some positive developments on the ground in Baghdad, but challenges remain,...

The freedom enjoyed in Najaf as a result of American actions in 2003 and 2004 will not matter if the United States has no diplomats permanently in Shiite Islam's Vatican City, ready to make Washington's case; America's enemies will define our legacy.