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Attiya Ahmad is Georgetown University’s 2009-10 Center for International and Regional Studies Post-Doctoral Fellow. She recently completed her PhD in Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. Dr. Ahmad’s work brings together scholarship on Islamic studies, globalization, diaspora and migration studies, economic anthropology, and political economy.
The Pakistan Factor in China’s Afghanistan Policy: Emerging Regional Faultlines amid US Withdrawal
To date, China has largely relied on Pakistan to conduct its Afghan policy. Not much bothered about the future political role of the Taliban, China fears the prospect of instability in Afghanistan after the U.S. exit. Beijing’s primary concern in a post-U.S. Afghanistan, which is likely to be run by a regime dominated by the Taliban, is that Uyghur separatists and ETIM might find a safe haven.
الوعود والمخاطر التي يواجهها المشرق الثلاثي الجديد للعراق
لقد كان يوم الأحد 27 يونيو/حزيران يومًا احتفاليًا في بغداد. حيث كانت المرة الأخيرة التي استقبل فيها العراقيون رئيسًا مصريًا قبل 30 عامًا. وقتها كانت المنطقة تستعد للحرب في أجواء يُخيِّم عليها عدم اليقين حين كان الرئيس الراحل حسني مبارك يتنقل بين بغداد وعواصم الخليج قبل غزو صدام حسين للكويت في 1990. غير أن الظروف اختلفت تمامًا الآن في 27 يونيو/حزيران الحالي، عندما تلقى الرئيس المصري عبد الفتاح السيسي والعاهل الأردني الملك عبد الله الثاني استقبالًا حافلًا بالسجادة الحمراء في قمة ثلاثية بمناسبة الاجتماع الرابع بين قادة الدول الثلاث بهدف تشكيل تحالف إقليمي جديد.
The factor of Iranian oil, while important for the situation in the oil market, turned out to be somewhat overestimated in terms of its impact on OPEC+ decision-making.
The War at Home: The Need for Internal Security Sector Reform in Iraqi Kurdistan
The forces and agencies of Kurdistan’s Ministry of Interior and the Kurdistan Region Security Council, collectively referred to the Kurdistan Region Interior Forces, are now the region’s main security actors, but their role as instruments of partisan rivalry and enforcers of public loyalty to the political bureaus threatens the Kurdistan Region’s stability. This report makes the case that coalition security sector reform efforts should be refocused on them. Although Peshmerga reform is necessary to improve the Kurdistan Region’s ability to combat external threats, it is equally, if not more important to start the same reform within these internal forces and agencies to achieve durable stability.
تخوض مصر وإثيوبيا والسودان في مأزق خطير بشأن نهر النيل، وعلى الرغم مما يعتقده المجتمع الدولي، فإن خطر المواجهة العسكرية بين الدول الثلاث ليس مستبعدًا على الإطلاق. إذ بدأت أديس أبابا في المرحلة الثانية لملء الخزان خلف سد النهضة الإثيوبي العملاق في أوائل مايو/أيار دون اتفاق مع الدول المشاطئة – مصر والسودان. غير أن الكثير قد تغير خلال العام الماضي والملء الثاني يتم في ظروف مختلفة نوعًا ما عن الملء الأول في يوليو/تموز الماضي. ففي الأشهر الماضية، عززت مصر من تواجدها الدبلوماسي وظهرت كلاعب مؤثر في حوض النيل والقرن الإفريقي وشرق ووسط إفريقيا.
Vision, creativity, leadership: Charting Georgia's path to NATO
It has been more than a decade since Georgia was promised eventual membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at the 2008 Bucharest Summit. At the time, NATO did not act decisively on granting Georgia a Membership Action Plan (MAP). A few months after the Summit, Russia invaded Georgia and continues to occupy Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region (more commonly known as South Ossetia). After years of economic, governance, and military reforms, this partial occupation remains the primary roadblock to meaningful progress on Georgia’s NATO aspirations. Other NATO members do not want to risk a confrontation with Russia by inviting Georgia to join the Alliance.
Charles Lister, Mona Yacoubian, and James Jeffrey join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the upcoming UN Security Council vote on the renewal of cross-border assistance for Syria, Russia’s threats of severing access, and how they might impact stability across the region.
الضربات الجوية الأمريكية على الميليشيات العراقية وخطر دوامة التصعيد
مهما كانت شدة محاولات الحكومة العراقية لتوجيه البلاد بعيدًا عن الصراع الإيراني الأمريكي، فإن الميليشيات العراقية المدعومة من إيران ستظل تسحبها مجددًا لهذا الصراع
The promise and the pitfalls of Iraq’s tripartite New Mashreq
Sunday was a festive day in Baghdad. The last time Iraqis had received an Egyptian president 30 years ago, the region was gearing up for war and uncertainty as the late President Hosni Mubarak shuttled between Baghdad and Gulf capitals prior to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The circumstances were quite different on June 27, when Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi and King Abdullah II of Jordan were given the red-carpet treatment at a tripartite summit marking the fourth meeting between the leaders of the three countries aiming to form a new regional alliance.
Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan are caught in a dangerous deadlock over the Nile River and despite what the international community seems to think, the risk of military confrontation among the three nations is not at all far-fetched. Addis Ababa began the second phase of filling the reservoir behind its giant Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in early May without an agreement with the riparian nations — Egypt and Sudan. However, much has changed over the past year and the second filling has played out rather differently from the first last July. In the intervening months Egypt has ramped up its diplomatic outreach and emerged as an influential player in the Nile Basin, the Horn of Africa, and East and Central Africa. Cairo succeeded in forging strategic alignment with Khartoum to exert diplomatic pressure on Addis Ababa, forming webs of alliances with different regional powers across East and Central Africa and the Horn of Africa to project power and influence, and exerting geopolitical forward pressure on Ethiopia in parallel with the diplomatic track to solve the GERD dispute.
