The Americans Are Gone. Will Iraq’s Militias Disarm?
On September 30, the US completed its military withdrawal from Iraq, ending a 12-year-long mission to combat ISIS that began in 2014. The date was also meant to be the deadline for disarming the largely Iranian-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), but Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has now pushed that cutoff back to June 30, 2027. MEI Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow Amb. (ret.) Robert S. Ford joins hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj to discuss what the US military withdrawal means for Iraqi security and the nature of the bilateral relationship going forward. They also speak about what it will take for Baghdad to bring the PMF militias to heel, and how Iraq may navigate the post-Iran war era.
Jordan’s Economy Weathers Iran War’s Shocks and Finds New Opportunities
In the summer of 2003, King Abdullah II told Bloomberg Jordan sits “between Iraq and a hard place,” a play on words designed to describe the kingdom’s challenging environment to an American audience amid the US-led Iraq war to the east and the lingering Palestinian-Israeli conflict to the west. Jordan is grappling with a much “harder place” today.
Proponents of the war with Iran have taken recent increases in crude-oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz as proof that the US strategy is finally working. President Trump is so confident in this that he recently rejected a seven-day plan, set forward by Iran’s foreign ministry, to end the war and open the strait. The United States is “winning tremendously,” Trump boasted.
Worries in Tehran as Riyadh and Washington Seek to Improve Ties
While Saudi Arabia hailed the Tuesday meeting between President Donald Trump and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman as a “historical turning point” in U.S.-Saudi relations, the Iranian press ex
U.N. Investigator: Iran’s Human Rights Situation Hasn’t Improved under Rouhani
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has not fulfilled his pledge to improve the country’s human rights situation and guarantee Iranians’ civil liberties, says Asma Jahangir, the U.N. special rapporteur for Iran. In an exclusive interview with the BBC Persian on Monday, the U.N.
Iranian Lawmaker: Washington’s “Safe Zone” Plan Won’t Change Balance of Power in Syria
A senior Iranian lawmaker says the Trump administration and its allies will not be able to establish safe zones in Syria, and that the deployment of American troops to Syria will also not change the trajectory of war in the Arab country, the Iranian Parliament’s official website reports.
I.R.G.C.-Linked Media Delegation Visits Beirut to Discuss Regional Issues with Hezbollah Leaders
A senior delegation of Iran’s Tasnim News Agency has held meetings with a number of high-ranking officials of the Lebanese Hezbollah in Beirut, the Iranian media reports.
Diplomatic Feud Between Turkey and E.U. Grows | Monday Briefing
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts W. Robert Pearson, Gerald Feierstein, Yousef Munayyer, and Alex Vatanka provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the simmering diplomatic feud between Turkey and the Netherlands, the Chinese offer to act as a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the congressional debate whether to supply aid to the Palestinian Authority, and the growing French business footprint in Iran.
Iran Arrests Opposition Leader’s Son in New Wave of Crackdown
Authorities in Iran have handed a six-month jail term to a son of Mehdi Karroubi, a former Iranian opposition leader and presidential candidate who has been held under house arrest in Iran since February 2011, Iranian reformist website Kaleme reported today. A Revolutionary Court has found Hossein Karroubi guilty of “propagating against the regime” after he published his father’s open letter to President Hassan Rouhani, in which he had blasted the “despotic regime” for illegally putting him under house arrest and called for a public trial.
Khamenei’s Symbolic Clemency as Authorities Intensify Suppression of Activists
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has approved a set of terms and conditions for pardoning or commuting prison sentences of a number of Iranian convicts, Khamenei’s official website reported today. Judiciary Chief Sadegh Larijani had asked the Supreme Leader to review and authorize the conditions under which the Judiciary could grant clemency to certain convicts on the occasions of the birthday of Prophet Muhammad’s daughter and the upcoming Iranian New Year – which begins on March 21.
Iran-Backed Militia Groups Continue to Play Key role in West Mosul Operations
Ali al-Hussaini, a spokesman of the Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces), has claimed that PMF forces have made significant territorial gains in western Mosul and the operation to liberate the strategic city of Tal Afar will begin soon.
While Iraqi forces are fighting to retake the western half of Mosul from Islamic State fighters, internal divisions regarding the future of Iraq’s political process are escalating ahead of provincial elections scheduled for September, especially within the country’s largest Shiite political bloc, the Shiite National Alliance.
The oldest peer-reviewed publication dedicated to the study of the modern Middle East, MEI’s flagship journal covers politics, society, and culture in the region.
