Research & Commentary Results

Joe Biden is no stranger to Iraq and this informs how Iraqi politicians have responded to his victory in the U.S. presidential election. Some have welcomed the news, while others are more cautious given concerns that a Biden presidency might lead to greater Iranian influence in the country. Indeed, Biden has a mixed record on Iraq. Though a Democrat, he voted for the 2003 Iraq War. But later as vice president, he was President Barack Obama’s right hand and fast-tracked their campaign promise to withdraw U.S. troops in 2011. Looking ahead to his presidency, his familiarity with the political class in Baghdad, forthright proposals about Iraq’s territorial integrity, and previous role in tipping power between major actors may falsely lead to a conclusion that Iraq will be a focus for his upcoming administration. The reality, however, is much different.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Paul Salem, Alex Vatanka, Gonul Tol, Gerald Feierstein, Randa Slim, Khaled Elgindy, Charles Lister, Mirette F. Mabrouk, and Marvin G. Weinbaum.

On October, 16, Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif set his country’s politics ablaze by offering a withering critique of the military establishment. Calling in from London via video conference, Sharif addressed a crowd of over 20,000 protestors at a rally in the Punjabi city of Gujranwalla organized by the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PMD), a recently formed coalition that brings together all major opposition parties. Under the PMD’s banner, erstwhile rivals like the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam–Fazlur (JUI-F) have joined forces to achieve two goals that they see as intertwined: unseating Prime Minister Imran Khan and regaining power from the military.

Iraq’s economic and fiscal crises, which came to the forefront this year following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, were bound to happen at some point. What corona and the ensuing drop in oil prices and declining demand for oil did is accelerate the timing, according to the recently released Iraqi government white paper, a report of the Emergency Cell for Financial Reform. What the paper doesn’t predict is that in the next 6-12 months, and possibly beyond, we could see a worsening of the crisis with both current and future governments trying to adjust oil production and revenues in an effort to contain public discontent.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Paul Salem, Jonathan M. Winer, Gonul Tol, Mohammed Soliman, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Elizabeth Dent, Mirette F. Mabrouk, and Robert S. Ford.

As attacks by ISIS increase in both Iraq and Syria, the upcoming U.S. presidential election offers a turning point for how U.S. foreign policy will seek to address a potential ISIS resurgence. This paper lays out this growing problem and recommends policy, which will be constrained by the outcome of the November election.

Afghanistan remains at the center of U.S. and international counterterrorism concerns. As America prepares to pull out its military forces from the country, policymakers remain divided on how terrorist groups in Afghanistan might challenge the security of the U.S. and the threat they pose to allies and regional countries. Advocates of withdrawal argue that the terrorism threat from Afghanistan is overstated, while opponents say that it remains significant and is likely to grow after the drawdown of U.S. forces. This report evaluates the terrorism challenge in Afghanistan by focusing on the political trajectories of three key armed actors in the Afghan context: al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, and the Islamic State.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Charles Lister, Ruba Husari, Marvin G. Weinbaum, and W. Robert Pearson.

Robert Ford, Hafsa Halawa, and Randa Slim join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the political and economic challenges facing Iraq, the state of US-Iraqi relations, and the potential impact of upcoming U.S. elections in November.

Landlocked Afghanistan has begun using the Chinese-operated Pakistani port of Gwadar for transit trade — a development Pakistani officials see as marking the start of Gwadar’s role as a gateway port through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Pakistan’s hope to develop the Arabian Sea port into a gateway for Afghanistan, Central Asia, and China’s Xinjiang region has been a long-standing one — and it is misguided. Islamabad should instead focus on local drivers to build the port and use it as a vehicle to develop the impoverished, but resource-rich region of southern Balochistan.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Marvin G. Weinbaum, Alex Vatanka, Dima M. Toukan, and Syed Mohammad Ali.

Thousands of former ISIS fighters and tens of thousands of civilians indoctrinated in the group’s extremist ideology currently sit in prisons and refugee camps across Iraq and Syria. Leaving the detainees there is dangerous, but transitioning them will require some type of accountability for the crimes committed. This paper explores options for international action to deal with the detention of ISIS members from Iraq and Syria and the foreign terrorist fighters who joined the group from around the globe.

Omar Samad and Marvin Weinbaum join host Alistair Taylor to discuss what to expect from the intra-Afghan talks underway in Doha, the ongoing violence on the ground in Afghanistan, and the challenges facing Afghan security forces as the US continues its troop drawdown.

المزيد من الحلقات

On Sept. 13, Bahrain recognized Israel at a ceremony attended by US President Donald Trump at the White House. With the stroke of a pen, Bahrain became the fourth Arab state to have forged official ties with Israel, following in the footsteps of Egypt (1979), Jordan (1994), and most recently, the UAE (Aug. 13, 2020).

In the recently released Showtime documentary “Kingdom of Silence” by Alex Gibney and Lawrence Wright, I made the statement that with hindsight the U.S. may have been better off never having occupied Afghanistan. That comment has brought some questions and responses, so let me be clear about what I mean and why.