... to compromise with and accommodate Iraqis Sunnis and others that created the current crisis with ISIS. The sad truth is that if Maliki had treated the Sunnis and Kurds more fairly, the Iraqi government—Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds united against terrorism as they were back in 2007—would have been in a strong position to fend off any ISIS incursions coming into Iraq from Syria. If anything, the internal dynamics of Syria spilled over into Iraq, not the other way around, and hardly related in any major way to the U.S. withdrawal. Conversely, if the U.S. had stayed the entire time, shoring up Maliki’s sectarian ...
... Eastern conflicts, the civil war raging in Syria is currently the 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 must also note the missed opportunities where his substantive ... ... weapons into Syria with a combination of naval blockades, no-fly-zones, and the U.S. specifically partnering with its allies Iraq and (NATO member) Turkey to use drones, reconnaissance flights, and other high-tech monitoring equipment to lock down Syria’s ...
... Grading of Obama’s Middle East Strategy, As Opposed to Republican Nonsense: Part I: Introduction, Muslim World Reset, Iraq, Israel/Palestine
If you can’t understand that Obama’s overall Middle East strategy is starting to work, you ... ... economic woes, as if things were great in January 2009 and America was not in the midst of the worst economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression. Still even more amusing and amazing are that many of these people are both the people who led ...
How the Obama Administration Removed Iraq’s Largest Political Obstacle
Originally published Nov. 2nd, 2014
How Did It Come To This?
At some point during ... ... former al-Qaeda in Iraq/Mesopotamia groups calling themselves first the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/the Levant/al-Sham (ISIS or ISIL) and now just Islamic State (IS) might possibly have been the worst, most brutal, most powerful terrorist organization ...
Dr. Glen Segell
(Fellow – The Ezri Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies,University of Haifa, Israel)
The Southern flank of Europe is the Mediterranean Sea. It is a small sea and many countries rely on the freedom of both sea and air traffic for their economy. On the one hand there was optimism that the Arab Spring would bring greater freedom for the individual in countries on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. There was further optimism that the North African countries of Tunisia...
Patrick Adams (Strategic Analyst & RIEAS Research Associate)
A victory for the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria would have a wide range of economic, social and political consequences. Economically, there would be a significant and damaging effect on the world's oil supply. Socially, not only would Iraq and Syria be affected but any country ...
Quentin de Pimodan
(Author based in the Middle East)
Al Baghdadi's major strategic failure has been his choice of the Fertile Crescent as the region for the establishment of his Khilafa. His dream of reestablishing a Sunni caliphate with roots in Iraq and Syria will eventually be crushed by the field's realities and only exposes his own lack of knowledge about the region. Not that a Sunni leadership would be impossible to carry on the lands of the ancient Omayyad and Abbasid's ...
