The United States has missed a valuable opportunity to use its influence in Iraq to encourage the government to implement the reforms Iraqi protesters have been demanding over the past six months and push back on Iran.
On March 1, Iraqi PM designate Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi announced that he had failed to form a new government to replace the current caretaker one headed by PM Adel Abdul-Mahdi. In the post-Saddam era, government formation in Iraq has always been a complicated process, but this is the first time since 2003 that a PM designate failed to form a government and the episode has revealed fundamental deficiencies in the Iraqi political process.
The U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force commander, along with the deputy chair of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, altered the political balance in Iraq. But the killings took place against a wider backdrop of political unrest and protests that forced the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi at the end of 2019. With Iraq potentially headed for early elections,the country is set for significant changes as political actors vie for a seat at the table. U.S. and coalition forces in the region will inevitably be affected, and the coming months will determine the future of both Iranian proxies and the coalition presence in Iraq.
If OPEC’s history is anything to go by, everyone suffers from an oil price war.
The country’s political parties now move to a new stage of repeating the crisis of the last few months, to nominate a new PM-designate.
Lebanese and Iraqi protesters have faced an uphill battle drawing global media attention since Arab Spring-like uprisings erupted in both countries last October. Coverage of the protests has been dwarfed by other major international news stories running concurrently with the uprisings, such as Brexit and the Hong Kong protests. The main implication of low coverage has been a lack of sustained international pressure on Lebanese or Iraqi political leaders to accommodate protester demands for wholesale systematic changes.
There has been a largely overlooked yet significant trend in entrepreneurship in Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country. Much of this has been concentrated in the country’s two main economic centers, Cairo and Alexandria, but there are also signs of a broader and more inclusive trend. Despite this boom, few start-ups seem to have left much of a mark beyond the early development stages. A lack of access to finance has long been recognized as a key obstacle, yet the approaches taken by the government and international development lenders have proven largely ineffective. If this, along with other obstacles, can be addressed, the country’s nascent start-up scene could become a catalyst for economic development.
Egypt’s burgeoning population is one of the biggest threats to its future.
The eastern Mediterranean has become an increasingly important focus for Turkey’s foreign and security policy, but the interlocking of new issues like energy politics and sovereignty rights with old problems like Cyprus has created significant challenges for Ankara.
The history of Erbil’s citadel reads like a cinematic epic worthy of Cecil B. DeMille
Possibly one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited human settlements, the citadel is built on a series of archaeological layers crowned by Ottoman-era houses. It may have been the site of a temple to Ishtar, was an important center of Nestorian Christianity, and survived both the 13th-century Mongol invasion and an 18th-century siege by Nader Shah. It was home to the Medians and the Assyrians (who called it Arbela), Muslims and Jews, and has housed Sufi shrines and displaced squatters. Its mound-like form has been shaped by successive generations of inhabitants and invaders who simply built on top of the rubble of their predecessors.
The green movement has been slow to catch on in Egypt, but the January announcement by the Egyptian government that it is finalizing plans to launch the country’s first green bonds could provide the financial incentives to further promote sustainable development. “Sustainability” is one of the fastest growing sectors globally, estimated to reach as much as $12 trillion annually by 2030.
As Egypt’s presidency of the AU comes to an end, it will have to maintain its focus on Africa to prove that it was not a one-time effort.
Allawi’s promises notwithstanding, there will be tough jostling among the parties over ministries, and more street protests and violence in the weeks ahead.
The protest movement in Iraq is now entering its fourth month. The protests raging across most of the south of the country have remained non-sectarian in their tone and message, and the movement is steadfast in its rejection of the political order, and all members of the political elite.
By any objective standard, the Lebanese protest movement has failed. This is not necessarily an indictment against it. Rather, it’s a reality one cannot and should not ignore. The responsible thing to do now is to try to understand why it has fallen flat, despite more than 100 days of demonstrations in various regions of the country including the capital, Beirut.
First, a word of solace. In the annals of history, the Lebanese are in good company as most uprisings and revolutions failed to attain their goals. And even when they did, success either didn’t last long or was completely reversed due to counterrevolutions and other spoilers, both foreign and domestic.