Iraq’s poorly led but far larger and more heavily armed government forces may eventually roll back the Sunni advance. For now they man a ragged defensive arc around the northern and western approaches to Baghdad that is 60-90km deep, writes The Economist
Ten years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq still suffers from the damage wrought in the overthrow of a dictator and the chaos that followed. Watch Here – Aljazeera
President Obama’s instincts about Iraq and Syria have been sound from the beginning: Greater U.S. engagement probably cannot make things better but certainly can make them worse, both for the people of the region and for our national interests. Read Here – Washington Post
The roots of the current violence go at least as far back as Iraq’s 2006-2007 civil war, which didn’t so much end as get put on hiatus. The spate of sectarian violence pitted the Shiite-majority government against Sunni militias and al-Qaeda in Iraq (a group from which ISIS emerged). The U.S. troop “surge” halted the […]
Riyadh‘s frustration with Russia and China now extends to the United States, not only over Syria, but also over Washington’s acquiescence in the fall of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and its new quest for a nuclear deal with Iran. Read Here – Reuters
The House of Saud‘s nightmare is amplified by paranoia. After all those warnings by King Abdullah for Washington to cut “the head of the snake” (Iran), as immortalized on WikiLeaks cables; after all those supplications for the US to bomb Syria, install a no-fly zone and/or weaponize the “rebels” to kingdom come, this is what […]
Many in the Arab world see the “growing ties” between the United States and Iran detrimental to the interests of the GCC states. In the changing political scenario, many analysts also fear an expansion in Iran’s ideological borders in a Sunni-dominated region. Read Here – Arab News
A different map of the Middle East would be a strategic game changer for just about everybody, potentially reconfiguring alliances, security challenges, trade and energy flows for much of the world, too, writes Robin Wright Read Here – The New York Times
Saudi Arabia appears resolute: It wants Bashar al-Assad out of Damascus. The Saudis view the fighting in Syria with the same intensity that they did the civil war in Yemen that raged in the 1960s — as a conflict with wide and serious repercussions that will shape the political trajectory of the Middle East for […]
President Barack Obama’s case for intervening in Syria is legally weak, internationally divisive and morally hollow Read Here – The Hindu
looking beyond borders 