Media Center

Iraqi officials insisted for weeks that Islamic State fighters had been all but exterminated in Tikrit, confined to a few pockets in the city center. Yet on Sunday, military officials in the city were reluctant to allow journalists to head back to Baghdad by road — even though the highway skirts Tikrit well to the west.

There is an old saying that you don’t negotiate with your friends; you negotiate with your enemies. It is very unfortunate that the United States and Iran are enemies, but they are and have been since 1979. As such, it is imperative that we negotiate with them. Former Vice President Dick Cheney famously said that we “don’t negotiate with evil, we defeat it.” Such statements are political slogans, not useful strategies to resolve differences between nations.

Bahrain Centre for Strategic, International and Energy Studies (DERASAT) Board of Trustees’ Chairman Khalid Ibrahim Al-Fadhala attended the 20th annual conference which opened today under the patronage of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince, UAE Armed Forces Deputy Supreme Commander General Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) snuff films are going viral, and the group’s barbarity has drawn recruits in the West at the same time that it has galvanized support for democratic governments to take action to stop them. In the United States, the threat of terrorism remains a top public concern almost 15 years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. National security is becoming a central issue for 2016 campaigns.

When the chips are down on a major national security issue like Iran, some Democrats talk tough, but then wilt when the White House balks. We’ve seen for 18 months Democratic senators come up with one excuse and mechanism after another to avoid imposing sanctions conditional on Iran making an acceptable deal.

American warplanes have begun bombing the Islamic State-held Iraqi city of Tikrit in order to bail out the embattled, stalled ground campaign launched by Baghdad and Tehran two weeks ago. This operation, billed as “revenge” for the Islamic State (IS) massacre of 1,700 Shiite soldiers at Camp Speicher last June, was launched without any consultation with Washington and was…

As negotiators from the United States, Iran, and other nations race to meet the deadline — originally set for today — for a comprehensive framework agreement regarding Iran’s nuclear program, the Iranian regime’s exploitation of the negotiations becomes clearer by the day. 

Saudi Arabia is moving heavy military equipment including artillery to areas near its border with Yemen, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, raising the risk that the Middle East’s top oil power will be drawn into the worsening Yemeni conflict. 

The Islamic State took its headline-grabbing show to the world stage last week as IS-inspired militants launched near-simultaneous attacks against the Bardo Museum, a popular tourist destination in Tunis, and Shite mosques in Sanaa. The Sanaa attack, the first by Islamic State militants in Yemen, was followed up by a second attack by an IS-affiliated group, Lions of Lahi, against police in…