1. “Emails
from a Dead Man”, This American Life, June 2013.
There are still tens of thousands of
Iraqis whose lives are in danger because they worked with the United States
during the war. We — Americans — have known about this issue for years: we’ve
gotten angry about it, talked about it, written about it, passed multiple laws
about it, but we have never quite solved it once and for all.
The chain of emails below shows what
we’ve got instead of a solution.
2. Report
of the Abbottabad Commission
3. The
Afghan Study Group, March 2013.
At nine years and counting, the U.S. war
in Afghanistan is the longest in our history, surpassing even the Vietnam War,
and it will shortly surpass the Soviet Union’s own extended military campaign
there. With the surge, it will cost the U.S. taxpayers nearly $100 billion per
year, a sum roughly seven times larger than Afghanistan’s annual gross national
product (GNP) of $14 billion and greater than the total annual cost of the new
U.S. health insurance program. Thousands of American and allied personnel
have been killed or gravely wounded.
The United States should by no means
abandon Afghanistan, but it is time to abandon the current strategy that is not
working. Trying to pacify Afghanistan by force of arms will not work, and a
costly military campaign there is more likely to jeopardize America’s vital
security interests than to protect them. The Study Group believes that the
United States should pursue more modest goals that are both consistent with
America’s true interests and far more likely to succeed.
4. “US
Mission Iraq: Twelve Things You Might Not Know About the Largest Embassy in the World”, Diplopundit, June 2013.
5. The
Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer
Welcome to The Turbulent World of Middle
East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological
University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the
Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums
are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic,
religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the
stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative
public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training
ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a
day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them
in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a
high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a
struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region.
This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic
rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment
on the region’s developments.
6. Costs
of War Project
The wars begun in 2001 have been
tremendously painful for millions of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan,
and the United States and economically costly as well. Each additional month and year of war will
add to that toll. Moreover, the human
costs of these conflicts will reverberate for years to come in each of those
four countries. There is no turning the
page on the wars with the end of hostilities, and there is even more need as a
result to understand what those wars consequences are and will be.
The goal of the Costs of War project has
been to outline a broad understanding of the domestic and international costs
and consequences of those wars. A team of 30 economists, anthropologists,
political scientists, legal experts, and physicians were assembled to do this
analysis. Their research papers are
posted and summarized on this website.
7. 10
Years After the Fall of Saddam, How Do Iraqis Look Back on the War?”, The
Atlantic, June 2013.
It's become tough for Americans to
reflect on the U.S. overthrow of Iraq's Ba'ath regime without coming back to
the conclusion that the failure to build a new, democratic state in the heart
of the Middle East was inevitable to the project of a U.S.-led "regime
change." Some, however, even among those who've long embraced the verdict
that the Iraq War was a disaster, still hesitate on the inevitability question
-- if only slightly: At the Aspen Ideas Festival yesterday, for example, The
Washington Post's David Ignatius remarked that he's haunted, when he now
looks at Libya or Syria, by "the consequences of toppling an authoritarian
regime without having in place the pillars that are going to support
civilized life" [emphasis added].
So was the "regime-change"
theory of the war wrong from the start, or is it still possible that the theory
was right and the execution incompetent?
The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg put the
question to Barham Salih, the former prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan's
regional government and a former deputy prime minister of Iraq's federal
government.
8. “Tareq
Aziz - The Other Truth”, March 2013.
9. “Todd
Greentree's seven principles for the next time we get mixed up in a small war”,
Foreign Policy, May 2013.
It is not too soon to draw cautionary
lessons from the inconclusive results of US performance during more than 11
years of Operation ‘Enduring Freedom’ in Afghanistan. As in Vietnam,
fundamental difficulties persist in adapting enduring institutions to the
requirements of strategy. At the heart of the matter is tension between the
assumptions that underlie counterinsurgency as practiced in Afghanistan and
organization of the US Armed Forces, State Department, and Agency for
International Development. Knowledge of basic principles and necessary changes
is available to answer the question, could the US have done better?
10. “The
Merry Pranksters Who Hacked the Afghan War”, Pacific Standard, July 2013.
For a long time, the Taj Guest House was
about the only place you could get a beer in Jalalabad. The provincial capital,
about 30 miles from the infamous mountains of Tora Bora, has been the main
staging ground for U.S.-led forces in the eastern part of Afghanistan since the
early days of the war. When I showed up in the city in November 2011 to report
on the propaganda efforts of a franchising Taliban, I found myself at the Taj.
There wasn’t much to the pub—just a bamboo-covered bar, a fireplace, a
glass-fronted cooler with some Heineken stacked inside, and a few bottles of
vodka and other spirits lined up under the red glow of a lamp.
Plus there was an odd little sign: “We
share information, communication, (and beer).”
Behind the Taj’s main building was a
second villa with an imposing cluster of satellite dishes and antennae jutting
from its roof. The villa housed a small team of young expatriates, half a dozen
or so women and men who generally kept to themselves. Their apparent leader was
a tall, broad-shouldered man who seemed always in a hurry. Looking like a cross
between a mountaineer and a mathematician, he had a salt-and-pepper beard and
curly hair that hung down to his shoulders, and he favored a uniform of black
polo shirts over tied-dyed tees. His name was Dr. Dave Warner.
11. “Iraq
on the International Stage: Foreign Policy and National Identity in
Transition”, Chatham House, June 2013.
As Iraq emerges from the shadow of war
and occupation, it has sought to regain influence as a major actor in an
ever-more volatile region. Though the 'new Iraq' attempts to project an
independent foreign policy, renewed instability and violence inside the country
has challenged the state's ability to develop a coherent and unified foreign
policy stance.
Jane Kinninmont and Gareth Stansfield
will present the findings of their new report which explores how foreign policy
in Iraq today is developed and implemented, and analyses the extent to which
Iraq's foreign policy aims are identifiable, independent and national in
nature. They will also engage in a wider discussion with an expert panel on
Iraqi foreign policy, particularly towards the conflict in Syria and how issues
in neighbouring states are intertwined with domestic Iraqi politics.
12. “Drones:
Myths and Realities in Pakistan", International Crisis Group, May 2013.
Nine years after the first U.S. drone
strike in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in 2004, the
U.S. refuses to officially acknowledge the CIA-run program, while Pakistan
denies consenting to it. This secrecy undermines efforts to assess the
program’s legality or its full impact on FATA’s population. It also diverts
attention from a candid examination of the roots of militancy in the poorly
governed tribal belt bordering southern and eastern Afghanistan and how best to
address them. Drone strikes may disrupt FATA-based militant groups’ capacity to
plan and execute cross-border attacks on NATO troops and to plot attacks
against the U.S. homeland, but they cannot solve the fundamental problem. The
ability of those groups to regroup, rearm and recruit will remain intact so
long as they enjoy safe havens on Pakistani territory and efforts to
incorporate FATA into the constitutional mainstream are stifled.
Since 2004, there have been at least 350
drone strikes in FATA, mostly in North Waziristan, South Waziristan and Kurram
agencies. These have killed significant numbers of al-Qaeda leaders and senior
militant commanders of both the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, but also scores
of innocent civilians, in part because of so-called “signature” strikes that
target groups of men based on behaviour patterns associated with terrorist
activity rather than known identities.
13. “Subcommittee
Hearing: Learning from Iraq: A Final Report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction”, U.S.
House of Representatives, Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa,
July 2013.
14. “Afghanistan in the 1950s and 60s”, The
Atlantic, July 2013.
Fractured by internal conflict and
foreign intervention for centuries, Afghanistan made several tentative steps
toward modernization in the mid-20th century. In the 1950s and 1960s, some of
the biggest strides were made toward a more liberal and westernized lifestyle,
while trying to maintain a respect for more conservative factions. Though
officially a neutral nation, Afghanistan was courted and influenced by the U.S.
and Soviet Union during the Cold War, accepting Soviet machinery and weapons,
and U.S. financial aid. This time was a brief, relatively peaceful era, when
modern buildings were constructed in Kabul alongside older traditional mud
structures, when burqas became optional for a time, and the country appeared to
be on a path toward a more open, prosperous society. Progress was halted in the
1970s, as a series of bloody coups, invasions, and civil wars began, continuing
to this day, reversing almost all of the steps toward modernization taken in
the 50s and 60s. Keep in mind, when looking at these images, that the average
life expectancy for Afghans born in 1960 was 31, so the vast majority of those
pictured have likely passed on since.
15. “Are
you smarter than a US diplomat? Take our Foreign Service Exam”, The Christian Science Monitor, January 2011.
Diplomats working for the US Foreign
Service are responsible for carrying out the policy of the United States. In
order to serve at one of the 265 US diplomatic missions around the world,
applicants must pass a series of examinations. The tests consist of a job
knowledge test, English language test, essays, oral exams, and a qualifications
panel. Our 20 questions are modeled after the job knowledge portion of the
Foreign Service Officer's test. The real examination consists of 60 questions
and is administered over 40 minutes. Think you know enough to become a US
diplomat? Take our quiz.
16. “Who
Runs This Town? Private Security
Companies and their effect on security sector reform in Afghanistan”, John Sverre Ronnevik, June 2012.
17. “Kurdistan:
The Next Autocracy?”, Foreign Policy in Focus, June 2013.
A haze hangs low over the city of Erbil.
Automotive exhaust and dry sand envelop the area, forming an opaque mixture
that sunshine struggles to penetrate. The capital of northern Iraq’s Kurdistan
Autonomous Region, Erbil operates as a de-facto independent state, with its own
legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Its soldiers wear their uniforms
with pride, sporting a tricolor symbol of their country sewn on to them.
Meanwhile, Erbil has total control of its external and internal regional
borders, just as any sovereign state would.
As a result, Erbil is separate from
Iraq, and from that country’s contentious and often deadly politics in Baghdad.
“Separation is a necessary step, as our representatives have only 90 seats in
Iraq’s parliament (out of 700 plus). Thus we have absolutely no voice in what
is going on,” said Abdullah, who owns a travel agency in downtown Erbil. “They
often say we will give you money for this and this, but we want you to do this
and that,” he added. “We, the Kurds, find this unacceptable, as so many people
have died so things will not be the same as before anymore.”
18. “Assessing
the Transition in Afghanistan”, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, July 2013.
19. “Afghanistan Index”, “Pakistan Index”, Brookings
Institution, June 2013.
