The communiqué, while largely symbolic, was nonetheless a major victory for Abbas’ beleaguered leadership.
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.
Khaled Elgindy and Michael Koplow join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the long-awaited “deal of the century” Middle East peace plan. President Trump rolled the plan out at the White House on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in attendance, while the Palestinians, who have refused to deal with the administration since it recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital at the end of 2017, were not there – and not invited. How has it been received so far, and where might things go from here?
The administration’s goal is not peace but the normalization of Israel’s military rule over millions of Palestinians.
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.
As an Iraqi American who lived through the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 U.S.-led invasion to bring about regime change, I have witnessed firsthand how U.S. wars in the region can break out when Baghdad and Washington fail to understand each other’s intentions and motives.
The notion that an American president, in consultation with two Israeli leaders, could decide on the future of Palestinians without any Palestinian involvement seems to epitomize Trump’s overall approach to the conflict.
So far, disproportionate violence by security forces against the civilian protesters has led to the exact opposite of what they sought to achieve, causing protesters’ numbers to swell.
It seems that both the right and the left in Israel are missing the main point.
The upcoming visit to the White House by Israel’s caretaker prime minister has nothing to do with the Middle East conflict and everything to do with giving yet another political favor to Benyamin Netanyahu. While the Jan. 28 visit may be all about the Israeli elections, it is shameful and dangerous for American officials to be giving time and space for discussions that affect the Palestinian people without their involvement.
MEI experts Robert S. Ford, Fatima Abo Alasrar, and Emad Badi join host Alistair Taylor to survey what lies ahead for the Middle East in 2020, with particular attention to Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iraq and Algeria.
In the early hours of Jan. 3, 2020, a U.S. Military MQ-9 drone fired multiple air-to-ground missiles and killed the commander of the elite Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – Quds Force, Major General Qassem Soleimani. The targeted killing of Soleimani was carried out as he left the Baghdad International Airport under overt military authorities. Given that the strike was carried out under this authority, it was publicized globally shortly after it was completed. There were other options available to target Soleimani, however.
While they’re there, the United States should refocus the partnership toward making the Iraqi Army more self-sufficient. Here’s how.
While yesterday’s vote in the Iraqi Council of Representatives on a decision to remove U.S. forces is not legally binding, it creates dynamics inside the U.S. and Iraq that make a U.S. decision to remove its forces all but inevitable.