Michael Doran is a Middle East policy scholar and national security expert who has held positions at the Hudson Institute, the Brookings Institution, and Princeton University, and served on the National Security Council staff. He contributed essays to The Weekly Standard analyzing U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, with particular focus on Iran and American leadership in the region. His pieces often offered sharp critiques of the Obama administration's approach to Middle Eastern affairs.
Israel’s primary adversary is acquiring powerful new weapons that will overturn the military balance in the Middle East. But it needs at least a year before its weapons will be fully functional. In the meantime, the Israelis are signaling that they are contemplating a preemptive war. In Washington,…
Israel’s primary adversary is acquiring powerful new weapons that will overturn the military balance in the Middle East. But it needs at least a year before its weapons will be fully functional. In the meantime, the Israelis are signaling that they are contemplating a preemptive war. In Washington,…
On Wednesday, Hezbollah conquered the Syrian town of Qusayr. The week before, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, appeared on television and vowed to save the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The timing of the speech made it clear that taking Qusayr was crucial to that goal. The town sits on the…
"Make sure,” Elliott Abrams told me, “that you have the better idea, and then push for it aggressively.”
The Obama administration is taking the side of the Egyptian people against the Mubarak regime while continuing to engage Iran. In doing so, it risks creating the misleading impression throughout the Middle East that it is actually working to raise up the Islamic Republic over traditional American…
President Obama came to power intending to rectify the perceived mistakes of George W. Bush in the Middle East. With that goal in mind, he announced two major initiatives: reaching out to Iran and intensifying efforts to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty. Neither effort has borne fruit,…