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.
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.
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.
Against the backdrop of a massive economic and financial crisis and a now three-month-old nationwide protest movement, Lebanon swore in a new government on Tuesday — a technocratic cabinet that is widely seen as a “shadow government” for Hezbollah and other entrenched political leaders. MEI’s Paul Salem, Randa Slim, and Bilal Saab join host Alistair Taylor to discuss what lies ahead.
No amount of analytical nuance or ingenuity can challenge the conclusion that the newly formed government in Lebanon is Hezbollah’s creation. The only question left to answer is: why did Hezbollah do it?
The new government is politically aligned with the pro-Hezbollah and pro-Syrian axis in Lebanon, and is very unlikely to drum up international and regional support.
Lebanon’s in trouble and the Lebanese may soon face the real reckoning that they’ve thus far avoided. Having bought time they’ve increasingly needed with money they’ve increasingly lacked, but somehow conjured, they’re running out of both. Its leaders must act, soon, to avoid a complete catastrophe. And, whether avoiding or coping with collapse, the Lebanese must well and truly consider how to shape a better future.
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.
For almost 40 years, American national security officials have looked down the barrel of the gun of war with Iran. I sat in rooms in the White House and Pentagon several times as small groups of senior officials considered what such a war would look like, how it would end, and whether we would be better off for having fought it.
The answer was always the same: It would be highly destructive in several nations, it would end in a stalemate with the Iranian regime in place, and nothing positive would have been accomplished.
Seven MEI experts weigh in with their views on what the killing of Iran’s Qassem Soleimani means for the region