... West, including Europe, are on the losing side of the conflict in Syria and this automatically limits leverage
During the 11
th
... ... Syrian constitution talks, how the U.S. is exerting pressure on Iran via sanctions and what the EU and Russia have in common when ... ... predictable foreign policy towards the region.
On October 26, 2019, the Iraqi-born leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ... ... you make of his death and what consequences could that have for ISIS and international terrorism as a whole?
Andrey Kortunov, Michel ...
... allies in the “apostate” Shiite regimes there. The two big culminations of these efforts in Iraq were in 2006, when Iraq nearly erupted into full-scale civil war, and in 2014, when ISIS nearly marched on Baghdad after taking much of the country from Maliki’s sectarian Shiite regime. Now, for the past ... ... though secular in ideology (Ba'athist), it is headed by Arab Alawite (a sect of Shiite Islam that is a small minority in Syria) Bashar al-Assad and is controlled mainly by Alawate Shiites. It is backed by Shiite Persian Iranians and the Arab Shiite Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Sunni Muslims, in general, do not like Shiites, and that is an understatement; ...
A Sensible Grading of Obama’s Middle East Strategy: The Syrian Civil War
Grading Obama on what has—and has not—been ... ... largest and deadliest. Here, as in other situations, we have a crisis in which we must be careful not to blame Obama too much but ... ... and, unlike Qaddafi’s, had strong patrons in Russia and Iran who would complicate and increase the costs of any Western ... ... no-fly-zones, and the U.S. specifically partnering with its allies Iraq and (NATO member) Turkey to use drones, reconnaissance flights,...
... stay and train/support Iraqi forces when Maliki would not grant them immunity. Nothing to complain about here, and I agree that a residual force would have been better but that is 100% on Maliki not granting immunity and having already committed to his Iranian allies that he would see our troops out in 2011. We will come to ISIS (and Obama’s mild military reengagement in Iraq) and Syria as separate issues.
Israeli/Palestinian Peace
Here, one may be tempted to make more of the efforts of the Obama Administration than they actually represent, but at the same time we should not minimize them.
To be sure, Obama has publicly ...
How the Obama Administration Removed Iraq’s Largest Political Obstacle
Originally published Nov.... ... extremists, especially in Iraq’s western Anbar province on Syria’s border, saw the defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq/Mesopotamia ... ... first the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/the Levant/al-Sham (ISIS or ISIL) and now just Islamic State (IS) might possibly have ... ... would also strengthen an Iraqi government that was in line with Iran in many ways and had resisted accommodating the U.S. government ...
