by Wayne White Hyping the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) threat risks generating flawed policies. The White House probably is a source of frustration, as its critics claim, but others seem too eager to commit US combat troops. Meanwhile, the administration, under constant pressure regarding the US effort, has not done enough to energize the
by Adil E. Shamoo*
The United States withdrew from Iraq in 2012 after nine years of a brutal occupation marked by the imprisonment of over 60,000 people, the death of hundreds of thousands, the torture of prisoners, and the destruction of the country’s infrastructure. The United States also [...]
via LobeLog
by Wayne White
In his Oct. 29 Foreign Policy article, “How We Won in Iraq”, General David Petraeus characterizes the 2003 US invasion and departure of US troops in 2011 as an American victory. This triumphant — though distorted — version of that searing saga seems acceptable to many Americans not [...]
July has been the second month this year in which violent deaths in Iraq have risen to above or close to the grim 1,000 mark. Yet, practically no measures have been taken by the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to alter the fundamentals driving this violence — even higher casualty totals could lie [...]
via Lobe Log
by Wayne White
The Biblical quotation, “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” could not be more relevant to what Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s near unremitting hostility toward Iraq’s powerful Sunni Arab minority has generated: a rising drumfire of mostly Sunni Arab bombings aimed at Maliki’s Shi’a base as [...]
via Lobe Log
by Wayne White
With a long history of misguided, damaging American intervention and meddling in the Middle East, the reported CIA effort to target the al-Nusra Front in Syria by helping Iraqi anti-terrorism units to attack its roots in Iraq seems to be the former and possibly destined to be the [...]
via Lobe Log
News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 15
“No Rush to War“: The editorial board of the New York Times highlights the Iran Project report – authored and endorsed by a bipartisan group of high-level national security experts – that we discussed earlier this [...]
In August I was one among several people who wrote about a well-funded lobbying campaign by the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) to get delisted from the US’s foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list. The MEK is an exiled Iranian group that has killed US and Iranian citizens. Armed and supported by Saddam Hussein, it helped Hussein repress [...]
Nir Rosen, unembedded journalist and author of Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America’s Wars in the Muslim World, graciously permits Lobe Log to publish some of his preliminary thoughts on the fears being raised about Iran ahead of the U.S.’s impending withdrawal from Iraq.
By Nir Rosen
With the U.S. withdrawal [...]
In yesterday’s Daily Talking Points we covered Michael Hanna‘s Atlantic piece about how the U.S. tends to exaggerate Iranian influence in Iraqi electoral politics. Indeed, with Iran-based Muqtada al-Sadr throwing his support behind Nuri al-Maliki recently, there have been a lot of neocon hysterics about the role that Iran played.
Instead of [...]
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