via LobeLog
by Wayne White
Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Baker al-Baghdadi’s declaration of a caliphate could be too much for quite a few of his Sunni Arab Iraqi allies to swallow. Yet, capitalizing on this surprising IS move will be exceedingly difficult as long as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki continues to slow formation [...]
via LobeLog
by Shireen T. Hunter
The beleaguered Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, is the latest in the long list of the West’s favorite political leaders turned into pariahs. The conventional wisdom now is that Maliki’s flaws and wrong policies, especially his alienation of the Sunnis and dictatorial style of governance, are at [...]
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
Since 2005, Iraqis have voted in four parliamentary elections yearning for decisive positive change. In three of those elections, popular hope for more effective governance and a decline in violence were dashed with governments consumed by their ambitions and flawed policies. Indeed, elections often have seemed less important than [...]
via LobeLog
by Robert E. Hunter
For three years, the Syrian civil war has continued unabated; and for three years, the so-called “international community” has achieved almost nothing — other than to head off the war’s escalation over the use of chemical weapons following President Barack Obama’s ill-considered drawing of a so-called red line [...]
by Emile Nakhleh
A few days ago, Bahraini officials announced they “foiled an attempt to smuggle explosives and arms, some made in Iran and Syria, into the country by boat.” Around the same time, the government also contended it had defused a car bomb and seized weapons in different locations in the country.
[...]
by Thomas W. Lippman
Shortly after President Obama’s startling telephone conversation with Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, a Saudi Arabian journalist wrote that “The phone call between Obama and Rouhani shocked the Gulf states, Jordan, Turkey, Israel, and other countries.” No matter which president initiated the call, he wrote, “What is important to know is what stands [...]
via LobeLog
by Robert E. Hunter
With President Obama’s decision to step up arms supplies to Syrian rebels, Syria’s war has become his war. This was not part of his game-plan.
Obama did inherit a mess in the region. This included two seemingly unending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of which has much [...]
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 Robert E. Hunter
“Then we’ll have done all we can.”
“Very heartless.”
“It’s safer to be heartless than mindless. History is the triumph of the heartless over the mindless.”
Yes, [...]
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