The Red Line: Iraq: What Went Wrong?

 For a number of years Iraq has been spiraling, with worsening insurgencies, sectarian violence and numerous regional players all treating Iraq like a political battleground. How did we get here though? What was the decision made to bring Iraq to the point we stand at now, and will decisions coming up better or worsen the situation? On the panel this week. JAMES LEBOVIC (George Washington University) DIYAR AMEEN (Kurdistan Mission to the EU) JOSEPH VOTEL (Rtr 4-Star US General) For more info please visit - www.theredlinepodcast.com Follow the show on @TheRedLinePod Follow Michael on @MikeHilliardAus

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WorldAffairs:The Crisis in Syria: A Geopolitical Reshuffling of Power (Nov 5, 2019)

The withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria has had grave repercussions for the security and stability of the entire region. The Turkish military has invaded northern Syria, killing dozens of Kurdish civilians and forcing over 200,000 Kurds to flee. In the absence of US troops, Russian and Syrian troops have rushed in to fill the power vacuum. Meanwhile, hundreds of ISIS fighters have escaped detention. Brett McGurk, distinguished lecturer at Stanford University and former special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, and David Phillips, director of peace-building and rights at Columbia University and former senior advisor to the US Department of State, make sense of the cascading impacts with WorldAffairs co-host Ray Suarez.

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WorldAffairs: The Remains of ISIS

While the Islamic State no longer has any territory in the Middle East, its ability to recruit soldiers and engage in violence remains. In fact, its newly decentralized nature may make it even more effective in carrying out terrorist attacks. On this week's episode, Ali Soufan, former FBI special agent and author of “The Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of Bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State,” and Robin Wright, contributing writer to The New Yorker and fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, discuss the future of ISIS and the fate of tens of thousands of captured fighters and their families with WorldAffairs Co-Host Ray Suarez.

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The Atlantic: The Fight Against White Nationalism Is Different

Against ISIS, America deployed drones, proxy armies, and hundreds upon hundreds of air strikes. The extremist protostate that once controlled millions of people is dead. The ideology that inspired ISIS, however, remains alive. U.S.-led efforts known as “countering violent extremism,” mainly aimed at ISIS and al-Qaeda sympathizers online, were of debatable utility. U.S. air strikes took out ISIS propagandists, just as an Obama-administration-authorized drone strike years earlier in Yemen killed one of al-Qaeda’s most effective messengers, the U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki. Yet his videos remained on YouTube until 2017, and the same basic ideas have continued to fuel terrorist attacks throughout America’s two-decade War on Terror. I remember the earnest passion one al-Qaeda member displayed, at his home in southern Turkey, as he played me a speech from someone he reverentially called “The Sheikh.” Osama bin Laden had been dead for almost three years, but the man was sure that if I just heard the logic of his words, it would open my eyes. [...]

Experts who have focused on both types of extremism—Islamist and white nationalist—tell me that a fundamental change in the way America views the latter would indeed help combat it, freeing up law-enforcement resources to address the growing problem. FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress last month that the bureau made about 100 domestic-terrorism arrests in the past nine months, putting it on pace to surpass the total from the previous year, and that the majority of the suspects were motivated by white supremacism. Since 9/11, far-right extremists have killed more people on American soil than Islamist terrorists have. [...]

The El Paso attack shows the ways in which white-nationalist terror has become an international movement—while also remaining a distinctly American one. Just minutes beforehand, a manifesto that authorities believe was authored by the suspected shooter was posted online. The 2,300-word racist and anti-immigrant diatribe expressed the fear that white Americans are being replaced by foreigners. As my colleague Adam Serwer has documented, the idea of white replacement, like the tenets of white nationalism more generally, has American roots. And these ideas are central to white-nationalist extremists in other countries. The manifesto cited inspiration from the March massacre at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which a white supremacist shot and killed 51 people after posting his own rambling warnings about white replacement. Many attacks by white supremacists target the groups demonized in this propaganda: the black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina; the Jewish worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. “If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can be more sustainable,” the manifesto read. [...]

At the moment, there is a significant disparity in the amount of funds, personnel, and law-enforcement tools that America devotes to combatting Islamist versus white-nationalist terrorism. Finding a way to add white nationalists to the list of U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations could help address that, Seamus Hughes, the deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, told me. It would lower the bar for law enforcement to be able to charge a person for providing material support to white-nationalist terrorists. It would allow investigators to get warrants to monitor their international communications. The Treasury Department could look into their finances and perhaps issue sanctions. U.S. investigators would have more leeway to explore whether individual attacks and plots were part of a larger network. (Alternatively, as the former FBI agent Ali Soufan has proposed, laws surrounding domestic terrorism could be changed to provide authorities with similar powers.)

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Aeon: Who really owns the past?

What is most striking about this campaign is its seeming indifference to the lives of the people who call the city home. UNESCO’s promotional video pans through the old city; block after block after block lies completely devastated … only for the camera to abandon them for the one monument that will actually be rebuilt. What kind of reconstruction is this, and who benefits from it? Certainly not the residents. Many Iraqis suspect that the Shiite-led national government is exacting revenge on the Sunni-majority population of the city. Instead, it appears that the main beneficiaries are the governments gaining prestige by launching and funding this campaign.

Cases such as Mosul’s highlight a key fact about cultural heritage: it is not primarily about the past – as counterintuitive as that might be. It is about the present. Heritage harnesses the power of the past to justify present social relations, especially relations of power. Governments trample over the lives and needs of individuals and communities, the wealthy convert their dubiously acquired wealth into cultural capital, all in the name of that heritage. And in our conviction that we must protect the remains of the past, the rest of us are often swept up in the enthusiasm. We don’t even question the relatively new idea of cultural heritage – that the remains of history are to be unquestionably treasured as our inheritance from the past and must be preserved in their original state. Or that what typically counts as cultural heritage are major historic buildings and monuments, perfectly suited to be exploited as symbols of the powerful. [...]

The situation truly changed only in the aftermath of the Second World War. The British and other imperial powers began to shed their colonies in earnest, and international agreements such as the 1954 Hague Convention, and the 1970 and 1972 UNESCO conventions codified respect for these new nations and their heritage. These agreements are rooted in the concepts of national sovereignty. They have enshrined the principle that cultural heritage belongs to the nation in whose territory it is found, and call for recognition and enforcement of national laws of cultural property. These conventions represent the final step in the transformation of attitudes toward antiquities laws of developing countries from dismissal to respect. But they have also enshrined and encouraged the use of cultural property for nationalist purposes. [...]

Universalist language serves a double purpose. It justifies the urges of the developed world to acquire, often in effect to loot, heritage from developing nations. And it does so while presenting those same developing nations as less enlightened. But this characterisation of developing nations runs counter to the actual history. In 1989, John Henry Merryman, professor emeritus of law and art at Stanford University, questioned ‘[t]he deference still routinely given to state claims to their “national cultural patrimony” in international affairs’. At the time, European and American powers had just begun taking the antiquities laws of developing nations seriously. Western scholars love to critique and mock the image of Hussein as Nebuchadnezzar, but it is not qualitatively different from Napoleon’s depiction as a Greek god or hero, defeating the Mamluk rulers of Egypt and bringing civilisation back to the country. In Europe and America, nationalist use of heritage is depicted as an aberration. It’s what others do. The West rarely holds itself up to the same mirror.

The New York Review of Books: Syria’s Monumental Loss

In May 2015, the world watched in horror as ISIS rolled into Tadmur, home to Palmyra’s magnificent Greco-Roman ruins. The ensuing destruction was widely denounced but the extremist group’s first act of vandalism in Palmyra drew condemnations only in Syria. Just a mile northeast of the Temple of Bel (founded 32 AD), stood the Tadmur Prison, one of the Baathist regime’s most notorious. Thousands of political prisoners were incarcerated there, suffering torture, humiliation, starvation, and death. In 1980, up to 1,000 detainees had been summarily executed there as retaliation for an attempt on the then-President Hafez al-Assad’s life. When ISIS blew up this prison, it erased a place of historical importance, a monument to a nation’s agony.[...]

The few people who appear in these photographs seem conjured from myth: a woman with a handsome face, fair hair, and intense gaze stands in a stony enclosure in a grimy calico dress, her eyes squinting in the mid-day sun; but what gives the photograph its pique is the depth of her tan and the incongruity of her refined features and rough hands. There is the portrait of a Bedouin with searching eyes and tattooed face. There is an old man in a thobe and keffiyeh casually resting with his bicycle before a magnificent Roman colonnade.

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Independent: I am the mother of an Isis fighter who died in Syria. This is my message to Shamima Begum and her family

Some of the signs are clearer with hindsight, but they were unique to him and each vulnerable individual who is radicalised behaves differently when it happens. At the time it simply did not cross my mind that my son could join such a heinous and vile group. [...]

What I’ve learned is there is no instruction manual for parents; as much as you lead your children on a path of kindness and growth, you can’t predict who they come across, or fully protect them from those who might influence them. [...]

One positive thing that can come from difficult situations like this is an increase in families reaching out for advice and support to help build critical thinking skills and resilience to combat extremist ideologies. Early intervention and examining motivating factors is essential work to help prevent another Rasheed or Shamima from becoming radicalised in the first place. If through Families for Life we can help stop just one person from succumbing to extremism and radicalisation, my son’s death will not have been completely in vain.

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Reuters: Explainer: Where do the Kurds fit into Syria's war?

The main Syrian Kurdish faction, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), began to establish a foothold in the north early in the war as government forces withdrew to put down the anti-Assad uprising elsewhere. An affiliated militia, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), secured the region. [...]

SDF influence widened to Manbij and Raqqa as IS was defeated in both. It has also reached deep into Deir al-Zor, where the SDF is still fighting IS. The SDF, which also includes Arab and other groups, says it has more than 70,000 fighters. [...]

The PYD is heavily influenced by the ideas of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, a founding member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a 34-year insurgency in Turkey for Kurdish political and cultural rights. Ocalan has been in jail since 1999 in Turkey. He is convicted of treason.[...]

Syria’s Baathist state systematically oppressed the Kurds before the war. Yet the YPG and Damascus have broadly stayed out of each other’s way during the conflict, despite occasional clashes. They also have been seen to cooperate against shared foes, notably in and around Aleppo.  

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The New Yorker: Is Revolutionary Fervor Afire—Again—in Tunisia?

On Christmas Eve, Abderrazak Zorgui, a thirty-two-year-old television reporter, posted a chilling cell-phone video shot in Kasserine, a city in western Tunisia that dates back to ancient Roman times. “I have decided today to put a revolution in motion,” he said, looking intently into the camera. “In Kasserine, there are people dying of hunger. Why? Are we not humans? We’re people just like you. The unemployed people of Kasserine, the jobless, the ones who have no means of subsistence, the ones who have nothing to eat.” Zorgui, who had short brown hair and wispy hair on his chin, then held up a clear bottle of gasoline. “Here’s the petrol,” he said. “I’m going to set myself on fire in twenty minutes.” His video was live-streamed onto YouTube. In his poignant farewell, Zorgui added, “Whoever wishes to support me will be welcom­e. I am going to protest alone. I am going to set myself on fire, and, if at least one person gets a job thanks to me, I will be satisfied.” [...]

Tunisia emerged from the Arab uprisings as the most credible democracy among the twenty-two Arab countries. It now has the most enlightened constitution. It has held the fairest Presidential, legislative, and municipal elections, judged by monitors from around the world (including me). In 2015, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Tunisian Quartet—four groups of human-rights activists, lawyers, a national union, and a trade confederation—for their work negotiating among parties and sustaining the fragile democracy. The Quartet “established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war,” the Nobel Committee said. “It was thus instrumental in enabling Tunisia, in the space of a few years, to establish a constitutional system of government guaranteeing fundamental rights for the entire population, irrespective of gender, political conviction, or religious belief.”

But, over the past eight years, successive Tunisian governments have failed to create enough jobs for the educated, to address pressing needs ranging from housing to health services, and to provide for society’s rising expectations. More than a third of young people between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four are unemployed. Zorgui’s death has resonated. It sparked days of protests and clashes with police in several cities, including Tunis, the capital, in the east. A tentative calm settled in over the weekend, but activists have called for further demonstrations to mark the Arab Spring anniversary. More worrisome, the existential challenges that threaten Tunisia’s government show no sign of improving anytime soon.

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Haaretz: Israel Displays Archaeological Finds Looted From West Bank

The problem with looted antiquities, beyond the affront to civilization, is that we cannot know for sure where they came from. They cannot be dated with any kind of credibility, and not knowing an artifact's provenance means that it's much harder to prove it is genuine. [...]

Despite the lurid video clips of ISIS fighters destroying pre-Islamic archaeological sites, their conquests spurred a tidal wave of smuggling, and precious archeological artifacts from ISIS-occupied sites flooded the Middle East. Some were smuggled through Jordan to the West Bank and thence to antiquities dealers in Jerusalem and around the world. En route, many were caught by the Israeli authorities.

The issue of provenance, and hence dubiety about the authenticity of items, explains why museums do not normally exhibit looted ancient artifacts. But Hizmi and the curators of the exhibition are convinced that all the findings are authentic, based on similarity to items that were excavated properly. [...]

“Archaeology reveals how much this country is our home,” Ben Dahan said, and added that Palestinian antiquities thieves “rob and destroy in order to disconnect us from our land.” Even though most of the artifacts on display are from non-Jewish cultures, including the lamps decorated with crosses, pagan idols and a figurine of a naked woman.

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Haaretz: What Hamas and Netanyahu Have in Common

To his credit, Netanyahu has come to understand what many opportunistic right-wing politicians are not willing to admit: War is not the solution to the confrontation with Hamas. [...]

However, Netanyahu refuses to negotiate with Hamas, arguing that it is as extreme as ISIS, when in fact it is innately different from ISIS, al-Qaeda and other Islamist militants.

The differences between the Hamas and ISIS are manifested in their worldview and actions. There is a profound ideological chasm between them, which leads to mutual denigration, and in some instances, to violence. [...]

Whereas Hamas grudgingly and indirectly accepted Israel’s existence in its new charter of 2017, ISIS and al-Qaeda consider such a compromise to be betrayal. [...]

In order to move beyond Netanyahu’s "no war and no negotiations" gridlock for Gaza and the Israelis living next door, we need to think critically about the underlying assumptions of Israel’s ruling right-wing parties, which reject peace negotiations, yet fail to eliminate terror.

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Foreign Policy: Syria’s Three Wars

It is not surprising, then, that one of the first firefights in Syria’s ongoing civil war took place near the city of Jisr al-Shughur in western Idlib, where insurgents assaulted a military outpost, killing more than 120 people. After four years of fighting, the Syrian regime lost control of Idlib in 2015. In 2017, as the United States pushed jihadi forces out of Raqqa in Syria’s east, survivors fled to Idlib. Their numbers were swelled more recently by men of all political stripes seeking to evade conscription into the Syrian army, which has been hoovering up all males between 18 and 51. In the interim, Turkey inserted about 1,300 troops and a dozen observation posts into the province. These were meant to contain any threat to Turkey emanating from Idlib, as well as provide the country with a forward base for further operations, as Ankara somewhat unrealistically described its mission. Instead, Ankara was primarily focused on corralling extremists who might otherwise make their way to Turkey, keeping refugees from crossing the border, and attempting to filter hard-core jihadis out of the larger rebel population, even as it sustained more moderate rebels as weapons to be used against the Assad regime. Once the civil war is over, Turkey will likely aim to convert a long-term occupation of Idlib into a permanent arrangement as part of a larger postwar settlement. [...]

Damascus has indicated its readiness to move against the rebels in Idlib soon, but a drumbeat of warnings from the United States, United Nations, Turkey, and others against a reckless offensive seems to have deterred the expected assault for now. From the regime’s perspective, the delay represents pragmatic restraint. A campaign in Idlib would be labor-intensive, and the regime lacks manpower. It would also be difficult—the foreign fighters, especially Central Asians, who have lived and battled in Syria for years have nowhere to go and would fight to the death. Intensive combat would push a wave of desperate refugees toward the Turkish border, which might inject unwelcome vigor into Turkish operations in the province. In addition, neither of Syria’s backers, Russia and Iran, want to be tarred as facilitators of the humanitarian disaster that most observers expect to result from an offensive. It is no wonder, then, that things have been put on hold.[...]

It is hard to know the exact reasons for Iran’s caution. It could reflect a view among regime officials that the targets of Israel’s strikes have been insignificant. Alternatively, Tehran might just not have plans to open a second front. It could also want to avoid doing anything that could diminish European support for the Iranian nuclear deal, or it might believe that it is overmatched. It is also possible that the skeptics are wrong and that the Assad regime has effectively banned counterattacks. Whatever the reason, Tehran could at some point decide that it has had enough and respond either from Syria or Lebanon.

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Haaretz: What Russia and Turkey Really Want in Syria

And last week, Russia struck a bold deal with Turkey that averts a battle for Idlib — at least for now. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will seek broader backing for the accord at the UN General Assembly this week, and try to drum up Western money for Syria’s costly reconstruction.

Syria’s Cold War patron, Russia wants to maintain influence over Damascus once the war winds down, to keep a strategic foothold in the Mideast and a stable client for Russian weapons and commodities — and to warn the U.S. and its allies against future interference. Russia’s announcement Monday that it will supply Syria’s government with sophisticated S-300 air defense systems sent that message loud and clear, depsite Israel's vow to continue to restrain Iranian actions in the country. [...]

As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan takes the stage Tuesday at the UN, he will be seeking to head off or at least delay new crises along the Syrian border. Turkey wants to avoid a new wave of refugees and stop extremists it once tacitly supported from setting up camp on Turkish soil. And most of all, Ankara wants to keep the region’s Kurds at bay. [...]

Iran is loath to see an expansion of Turkish and U.S. influence in the region, and argues that the West fueled jihadis with past support for the Syrian opposition.

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The Atlantic: ‘A Sudden Burst of Movement’ on the Afghan Peace Process

This month, the Trump administration reportedly ordered its diplomats to seek direct talks with the Taliban. That news report came just days after General John Nicholson, the head of the nato mission in Afghanistan, said the United States was “ready to talk to the Taliban and discuss the role of international forces.” The militant group maintains that the Afghan government is illegitimate and that it will talk only to the U.S. It also insists on a withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the country as part of any reconciliation process in Afghanistan. The Taliban has not dismissed the reported offer—but noted it was awaiting a formal offer from the U.S. [...]

The reported U.S. offer of direct talks with the Taliban comes on the heels of the Afghan government’s own unprecedented overtures toward the militant group. In February, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani offered the group unconditional talks; and last month, he offered the Taliban an unconditional cease-fire to coincide with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. If that offer was a surprise, the Taliban’s response to it was a shock: It accepted the offer and ordered its fighters to lay down their weapons for three days. The effectiveness of the truce—as well as the resumption of the fighting after Eid—signaled just how much control the Taliban has over its fighters and the Afghan government over its forces. Not only that, the scenes of public celebrations, Taliban fighters embracing Afghan soldiers and taking selfies together, and a dramatic reduction in bloodshed during those three days showed just how tired everyone in Afghanistan, including those engaged in the fighting, is of their nearly two-decade-long conflict. The Taliban, which is now publicly seeing that the public it claims to represent supports a reconciliation process, has even ordered a halt on attacking civilian targets. The reports of the U.S. offer of direct talks have also strengthened the optimism in the country. [...]

“My interpretation is that the Afghan government sees potential value in a U.S.-Taliban channel with at least two conditions: That it’s coordinated very closely with Kabul and with a great deal of transparency about what’s discussed,” Walsh, who previously served at the State Department as the lead adviser on the Afghan peace process,  told me. “And, second, no talks are going to delve into the political future of Afghanistan without the appropriate Afghan representatives in the room.” He said there is no deal the U.S. could make with the Taliban without “a meaningful agreement between the actual stakeholders who have to live with it, and those are Afghans.”

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Al Jazeera: Why are Iraqis protesting?

For the past two weeks, waves of mass protests have engulfed several of Iraq's southern governorates, spreading from Basra all the way to the capital, Baghdad.

Summer protests are a fairly regular feature of the Iraqi political calendar, as the unbearable heat brings the public's long-simmering grievances to boiling point. However, this year's protests will likely cause Iraq's political classes more concern than usual.

The root causes and triggers of the ongoing protests are not that different from previous years: lack of basic services (especially electricity shortages), corruption, and unemployment. In addition to the infernal heat, this summer has been marked by unprecedented water shortages. The ensuing public anger was exacerbated by 15 years of remarkable levels of waste and theft. [...]

The reduction of violence, the retreat of identity politics and the relative stabilisation of the state have brought Iraq's systemic failures into sharper focus. In the absence of existential struggles and civil war, Iraqis finally got some breathing space that has allowed them to demand more from their corrupt political elites. [...]

There is no guiding ideology to be overturned, no Leviathan to tear down and no singular authoritarian figure whose demise might signal a structural shift in the governing order. Rather than revolutionary climaxes, Iraq is far more likely to witness gradual change through a recurring cycle of political and economic pressures leading to protests and riots that, in turn, meet a combination of force and piecemeal reforms. Indeed, elements of just such a dynamic have been in evidence since 2011 and more so since 2014.

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VisualPolitik EN: Why do many ARAB COUNTRIES ban AL JAZEERA?

Beyond any doubt, what made Qatar famous can be summarized in just two words: AL JAZEERA. It is the most influential TV network in the Arab World and one of the most important news networks on the entire planet.

Then you might wonder… isn’t Al Jazeera just a state propaganda channel? I mean to what extent should we really trust their information? What’s their ideology? Well, today in VisualPolitik we are going to answer all these questions!

Vox: How Islamist militant groups are gaining strength in Africa

Islamist terrorist groups have found a new home and it's not in the Middle East -- it's in Africa. Specifically, the Sahel, a band of territory in West Africa between the Sahara desert and the savannah.

Since the early 2000s, Islamist extremist groups have increasingly strengthened their base here -- training fighters, raising money, and launching a massive number of attacks.

Some are linked to al-Qaeda and other Islamic State. This is throwing these already weak countries into crises and making the region one of the most dangerous in the world. 

CityLab: Terrorism and the De-Gentrification of Istanbul

Istanbul's central Beyoğlu district experienced sweeping gentrification throughout the 2000s, as its popularity increased among locals and a boom in tourism brought more and more visitors. But a devastating string of terror attacks and woeful city planning have driven away locals and tourists alike, prompting a swift process of decline. [...]

Long known for its intellectual and bohemian character, Cihangir of the early ‘90s was home to one of the city’s first punk venues, which occupied the top floor of a building that looked out at the iconic strait that divides Europe and Asia. The neighborhood was also a hub for the city's transgender community until a wave of new cafes and bars swept through in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, leading to higher rents. Until recently, Cihangir was among the most coveted spots in the city but “for rent” signs are increasingly common now. Rental prices have dropped 20 percent since last year, according to Yalçın Bayazıtlı, a real estate agent who has lived and worked in Cihangir his entire life. Bayazıtlı said that most homeowners won't go any lower, though some properties have managed to depreciate in value even further. “One apartment that was going for TL 5,000 ($1,400) a month is now listed at TL 3,500 ($980),” says Bayazıtlı. [...]

For Güvenç, the city planning decisions made in Istanbul during its boom were oriented toward affluent globetrotters. Though they don't live in the city, urban areas are often restructured to suit their tastes, Güvenç says. “These are the people that can travel the world, stay 10 days in New York, 10 days in Los Angeles, and then fly to Tokyo,” he says. “Their wishes and desires dictate what is to be done and what is to be put aside,” says Güvenç of the weight they carry in the planning of a typical 21st century global city. And as Turkish Airlines, the country's flagship airline, expanded its routes to connect Istanbul to cities throughout the world, cruise ships also docked in the city with more frequency. The long-neglected Istanbul, and its breathtaking views, had become a must-see for this coveted demographic.

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Haaretz: Saudi Arabia Once Wrote Off Iraq as a Win for Iran. But Now, the Saudi Crown Prince Is Advancing on Baghdad

In their competition for regional supremacy, Iran has gained the upper hand over Saudi Arabia in their proxy wars in Syria and Yemen. Yet in Iraq, Tehran seems to have been wrong-footed – for the time being – by Riyadh’s charm offensive to woo Shia leaders and to frustrate Iran’s attempts to consolidate its influence over the fractured country. [...]

In the past year, under the leadership of Mohammad bin Salman, commonly known as MBS, Riyadh has stepped up its engagement with Shia-majority Iraq. The elections - in which Baghdad’s geopolitical orientation was a key consideration among the leading contenders - was a key impetus for this accelerated engagement. Indeed, rumors that MBS himself would pay a pre-election visit to Baghdad had provoked alarm in Iran and amongst Iranian-backed Iraqi politicians.

Sadr’s electoral success could open the way for further Saudi engagement. His Sairoon ("Marching Towards Reform") coalition, an unlikely combination of reformed Shia militants, communists, secular and civil society groups, won 54 seats in the ballot – the highest number – but still fell well short of a majority. [...]

While the Saudis would have preferred the Western-orientated Abadi to have won outright (his coalition was third with 42 seats) Sadr’s election victory is a favorable result, notwithstanding his unwavering distrust of America. [...]

Abadi twice visited Riyadh in 2017, but it was Sadr’s trip last July that really underlined the Crown Prince’s desire to send out an olive branch to Iraq’s Shia heartlands. There, many regard Saudi Arabia as a sponsor of Sunni extremism during Iraq’s years of ethnic turmoil, and are no doubt concerned about Saudi persecution of its own Shia minority.

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The New York Review of Books: The New Europeans

Although terrorist attacks in Europe continue to attract much attention, they don’t dominate the news as much as they did when they were a horrendous novelty back in 2014 and 2015. That terrorists can create localized but not widespread panic has been proved time and again; Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the former head of the United Nations’ counterterrorism committee, has aptly described Islamist terrorism as “a lethal nuisance.”  [...]

In contrast to attacks committed by non-Muslims such as Stephen Paddock, who massacred fifty-eight people at a concert in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017, jihadi attacks have repercussions on the communities and traditions that are believed to have encouraged them. Each atrocity increases by a fearsome multiple the distrust, surveillance, and interference to which Muslims in the West are subject. In the month following the Arena bombing, the Manchester police logged 224 anti-Muslim incidents, compared to thirty-seven in the same period a year earlier. On June 19, 2017, when a white Briton, Darren Osborne, plowed his van into a group of Muslims in North London, killing one, many Britons, including ones I spoke to, felt that the Muslims had had it coming.2 This is what Kepel means by fracture: jihadism engenders a reaction “against all Muslims,” while populist politicians “point the finger at immigrants or ‘Islam.’” [...]

According to an opinion poll commissioned by Le Figaro in April 2016, 63 percent of French people believe that Islam enjoys too much “influence and visibility” in France, up from 55 percent in 2010, while 47 percent regard the presence of a Muslim community as “a threat,” up from 43 percent. A poll conducted in Britain around the same time found that 43 percent of Britons believe that Islam is “a negative force in the UK.” Many British Muslims, I was told by a Muslim community activist in Leeds, spent the hours after the Las Vegas massacre “praying that the perpetrator wasn’t a Muslim,” for had he been, it would have led to furious responses online, in addition to the usual round of ripped-off hijabs and expletives in the street, if not actual physical threats. [...]

In recent years, England’s encouragement of multiculturalism has weakened in response to terrorist attacks and a rapid increase in the Muslim population, which has doubled since 2000 to more than three million people. By 2020 half the population of Bradford—which, besides being one of the country’s most Muslim cities, has one of its highest birth rates—will be under twenty years old. Responding to this demographic shift and the fear of terrorism, Britain under David Cameron and, more recently, Theresa May has given the policy of multiculturalism a very public burial, a shift that seems entirely in tune with the defensive impulses that led a small majority of voters to opt for Brexit. (I was told in Bradford that many Muslim inhabitants of the city also voted for Brexit, to indicate their displeasure at the recent arrival of Polish and Roma immigrants.) Typical of the panicky abandonment of a venerable article of faith was May’s reaction to the terrorist attack on London Bridge in early June 2017, after which she demanded that people live “not in a series of separated, segregated communities, but as one truly United Kingdom.” A central element of the government’s anti-extremism policy is the promotion of “British” values such as democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and tolerance. [...]

President Emmanuel Macron has made friendly overtures to France’s Muslims, and during his campaign last year he acknowledged that terrible crimes were committed by the French in Algeria. On November 1 anti-terrorism legislation came into force that transferred some of the most repressive provisions of France’s state of emergency—which ended on the same day—into ordinary law. Prefects will continue to be allowed to restrict the movement of terror suspects and shut down places of worship without a court order, even if raids on people’s homes—a particularly controversial feature of the state of emergency—are now possible only with the permission of a judge. To be Muslim will be to remain under suspicion, to be belittled, profiled, and worse. As in Britain, the short-term imperative of keeping people safe is proving hard to reconcile with the ideal of building a harmonious society.

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