Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
A new national guard could help bridge Iraq’s sectarian divide. But it must be accompanied by diplomatic efforts to reach out to Sunnis and prevent outside meddling.
U.S. President Barack Obama’s four-pronged strategy against the Islamic State is fraught with trade-offs, risks, and hidden costs that need to be addressed.
The president's four-pronged strategy of airstrikes, support to local proxies, defending against ISIS attacks through intelligence and counter-terrorism, and humanitarian assistance leaves many unanswered questions.
Egypt and its Gulf backers need to end their harmful meddling in Libya’s affairs under the guise of counterterrorism. It is destabilizing both Libya and Egypt.
Libya is clearly entering a dangerous new phase, but conventional readings of its politics misdiagnose the problem and offer solutions that will fail or even make things worse.
To avoid throwing the country into further chaos, Libyans must focus on forging a consensus government, build security institutions, and recommit itself to a broad-based national reconciliation and the drafting of an equitable constitution.
It’s important to understand the limits of U.S. assistance: It can help build security institutions, but it cannot shape how those institutions are commandeered for personal, political, or communal aims.
It is vital that any response to ISIS—Iraqi, Iranian, or American—be designed to exploit the divisions and contradictions within the organization and the coalition it has formed.
Gulf states’ reasons for intervention in Syria are complex, and their policies are unpredictable and frequently contradictory.
Libya is facing the worst violence since its 2011 revolution, thrusting the country into a new phase of its troubled transition and posing new challenges for the United States.
