Monday Briefing: ISIS to Lose Fallujah; Pakistan to Join S.C.O.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Robert S. Ford, Paul Scham, and Marvin G. Weinbaum provide analysis on recent events including the battle against ISIS for Fallujah, Israel’s upcoming address to the EU Parliament, and Pakistan’s upcoming accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
The battle for Fallujah, Thursday's OPEC meeting, and Hariri's loss in Tripoli
In this week’s briefing, MEI experts Charles Lister, Herman Franssen, and Paul Salem provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the battle for Fallujah, Thursday’s OPEC meeting, and Saad Hariri’s defeat in Tripoli, Lebanon.
Iraqi Narrative of U.S. Invasion Struggles to Be Heard
A new American opera called Fallujah debuted this spring, bringing attention to post-traumatic stress disorders suffered by U.S. marines who fought in Iraq. The opera joins a list of American artworks that have explored the impact of the Iraq war on American lives. The big elephant in the room, however, are the Iraqi victims of the war and the deafening silence in U.S. discourse on the horrific consequences the war brought on them.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Marvin G. Weinbaum, Charles Lister, Hassan Mneimneh, and Paul Scham provide analysis on recent events including the killing of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, deadly blasts targeting regime-held territory in Syria, Iraq’s intra-Shiite feud, and Avigdor Lieberman’s appointment as Israel’s Defense Minister.
The Potential for Intra-Regional Energy Cooperation
Regional Cooperation Series
This Policy Paper is part of The Middle East Institute’s Regional Cooperation Series. Throughout 2016, MEI will be releasing several policy papers by renowned scholars and experts exploring possibilities to foster regional cooperation across an array of sectors. The purpose is to highlight the myriad benefits and opportunities associated with regional cooperation, and the high costs of the continued business-as-usual model of competition and intense rivalry.
Philip Gordon, a former Middle East policy adviser in the White House, likes to say that President Barack Obama learned three lessons from the region’s unending turmoil.
Iraq is enduring a dangerous political crisis. Its substance, however, is under dispute. For many, it is a valiant attempt at reform, and at fulfilling the long overdue promise of sound governance, against a system brought to a halt by corruption and dysfunction. For others, it is a questionable maneuver to restore autocracy, and to unravel the checks and balances that have been instituted over more than a decade. The truth, however, is not somewhere in between, irrespective of the many smokescreens that the opponents of reform may raise.
Monday Briefing: Iraq's Political Storm and U.S. Efforts to Salvage the Syrian Cease-fire
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Hassan Mneimneh, Robert S. Ford, and Mabrouka M’Barek provide analysis on recent events including Iraq’s political storm, efforts to salvage the Syrian cease-fire, and the first Tunisia-U.S. Joint Economic Commission meeting starting later this week.
Recent additions to America’s fighting contingent in Iraq and Syria show U.S. determination to beat ISIS militarily. President Barack Obama announced Monday that 250 more U.S. special forces will enter Syria to help anti-ISIS fighters, and Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said last week that Apache helicopters and more special operations forces will be sent to Iraq.
