News & Events
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Who is behind Isis’s terrifying online propaganda operation?
June 23, 2014
Zaid al-Ali, author of The Struggle for Iraq’s Future, a book about contemporary Iraq published earlier this year, says it isn’t clear how many people actually follow Isis on Twitter or Facebook. “But the general impression Isis tries to convey of itse …
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Iraqi Parties Pressure Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to Step Down
June 23, 2014
If Mr. Maliki does step aside, it is unclear whether Iraq’s fractious political system could produce another viable candidate among the multiple Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties to replace him. “We know that a lot of [lawmakers] are against Maliki,” s …
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ARTICLE: How Maliki Ruined Iraq
June 19, 2014
When Mosul fell to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) on June 10, most Iraqis were, like the rest of the world, shocked. When two other cities fell days later with minimal resistance from the Iraqi security forces, the response was horror. Ho …
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Why some Iraqis would rather try their luck under ISIL
June 15, 2014
Zaid Al-Ali, a former legal advisor to the United Nations in Iraq, says he is not surprised by the initial warm welcome ISIL is getting in Mosul. He credits the group’s decision restore freedom of movement to the city. “Those checkpoints were a real pa …
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Military Strongmen: Seeding Chaos In The Name Of Power
June 14, 2014
In a region torn apart by violence, a leader who promises security above all else can be appealing. Three years after the chaos of the Arab Spring, these strongmen types are rising again in the Middle East. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is one o …
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VIDEO: Iraq’s Jihadist Takeover: Can the Spread of Extremists be Stopped
June 12, 2014
How can jihadists suddenly be in control of Iraq’s second-largest city? The Sunni radicals of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have stormed Mosul and points north in Kirkuk province, this after US-trained government forces fled. Less than a fiv …
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Maliki Turns to Militias to Halt Militant Onslaught
June 12, 2014
Even if the measure achieves its immediate goal, the use of such militia groups would sow the seeds of future crises, said Zaid Al-Ali, author of The Struggle for Iraq’s Future. “That could possibly help him in the short-run, if there were enough of th …
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Insurgents seize Iraqi city of Mosul as security forces flee
June 11, 2014
“Maliki calling on people to arm themselves to fight al-Qaeda is a real indictment of his own security policy and also an invitation for more chaos,” said Zaid al-Ali, an Iraq scholar and the author of a recent book on the challenges confronting Iraq. …
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INTERVIEW: Islamic militants have taken over Iraq’s second-largest city
June 10, 2014
“Where did it all go wrong?” asks Zaid Al-Ali, an Iraqi legal scholar and author of “The Struggle for Iraq’s Future. “The Iraqi military and its special forces, its regular forces, its police forces, were trained over and over again by the United State …
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Egyptian Election Law Helps to Block Opposition
June 6, 2014
THE NEW YORK TIMES – The military-appointed interim president of Egypt on Friday issued an election law that experts say all but eliminates the chance of parliamentary opposition to his successor, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the former general who installed …
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