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501. The Ineffectiveness of American Covert Regime Change Operations During the Struggle Against Islamist Terrorism

Author:
Jason Cooley
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Following the September 11th terrorist attacks, the United States government embarked on a campaign to weaken the Islamic extremist organizations that were present in the world. Some of the steps that this lone superpower took to accomplish this objective could be easily detected. However, there were others that went undetected until investigative reporters wrote about them in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other reputable newspapers. Once these covert initiatives were exposed, certain parties began to conduct inquiries to ascertain whether or not they were helping the United States prevent terrorist attacks by Islamist networks. Two initiatives, which received a considerable amount of attention in the post-9/11 era, were the Central Intelligence Agency’s drone and enhanced interrogation programs. In 2009, the members of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee revealed that they would be conducting a thorough review of the latter. Approximately five years after this announcement, the committee released a report to the public that said sleep deprivation, waterboarding and other forms of torture did not lead to actionable intelligence. In other words, they did not produce any information that enabled the CIA to foil terrorist attacks which were on the verge of being carried out against the United States (Klapper and Dilanian 2014). A lot of the analyses of the CIA’s drone program were conducted by prominent academics like Fawaz Gerges. At one point in The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda, this professor at the London School of Economics mentions how drone strikes often killed innocent civilians in Muslim countries. When civilians did perish, extremist organizations would see a rise in the number of recruits who were interested in executing terrorist operations (Gerges 2014, p.25).
Topic:
Intelligence, Regime Change, 9/11, and Islamism
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

502. The Effect of Civilian Casualties on Wartime Informing: Evidence from the Iraq War

Author:
Andrew Shaver and Jacob N. Shapiro
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC)
Abstract:
Scholars of civil war and insurgency have long posited that insurgent organizations and their state enemies incur costs for the collateral damage they cause. We provide the first direct quantitative evidence that wartime informing is affected by civilian casualties. Using newly declassified data on tip flow to Coalition forces in Iraq we find that information flow goes down after government forces inadvertently kill civilians and it goes up when insurgents do so. These results have strong policy implications; confirm a relationship long posited in the theoretical literature on insurgency; and are consistent with a broad range of circumstantial evidence on the topic.
Topic:
War, Insurgency, Counterinsurgency, Information Age, Civilians, and Casualties
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

503. Employment Status and Support for Wartime Violence: Evidence from the Iraq War

Author:
Andrew Shaver
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC)
Abstract:
The unemployed are often inculpated in the production of violence during conflict. A simple yet common argument describes these individuals as disaffected and inclined to perpetrate affectively motivated violence. A second holds that they are drawn to violent political organizations for lack of better outside options. Yet, evidence in support of a general positive relationship between unemployment and violence during conflict is not established. Drawing from a large body of psychological research, I argue that a basic but important relationship has been overlooked: Loss of employment, rather than rendering individuals angry, increases feelings of depression, anxiety, helplessness, and belief in the power of others. Members of this segment of society are more likely than most to reject the use of violence. Drawing on previously unreleased data from a major, multi-million dollar survey effort carried out during the Iraq war, I uncover evidence that psychological findings carry to conflict settings: unemployed Iraqis were consistently less optimistic than other citizens; displayed diminished perceptions of efficacy; and were much less likely to support the use of violence against Coalition forces.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Development, Labor Issues, Conflict, Violence, War on Terror, and Quantitative
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

504. Protecting the West’s Interests in Turkey

Author:
Ross Wilson
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Ambassadors Review
Abstract:
Turkey has recently come to look like a beat-up boy. At home, it seems to have regained the authoritarianism of its past. Abroad, its behavior looks rough edged and militaristic. It gets blamed for not doing enough, or the right things, on Syria, the problem of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and Europe’s migrant crisis. Some have concluded that this country, its regional policies in tatters and under the assault of an autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, can no longer be regarded as an ally.
Topic:
Migration, Military Affairs, Authoritarianism, Refugee Crisis, and Islamic State
Political Geography:
Iraq, Turkey, and Syria

505. How to Secure Mosul Lessons from 2008—2014

Author:
Michael Knights and Michael Knights
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
IN EARLY 2017, Iraqi security forces (ISF) are likely to liberate Mosul from Islamic State control. But given the dramatic comebacks staged by the Islamic State and its predecessors in the city in 2004, 2007, and 2014, one can justifiably ask what will stop IS or a similar movement from lying low, regenerating, and wiping away the costly gains of the current war. This paper aims to fill an important gap in the literature on Mosul, the capital of Ninawa province, by looking closely at the underexplored issue of security arrangements for the city after its liberation, in particular how security forces should be structured and controlled to prevent an IS recurrence. Though “big picture” political deals over Mosul’s future may ultimately be decisive, the first priority of the Iraqi-international coalition is to secure Mosul. As John Paul Vann, a U.S. military advisor in Vietnam, noted decades ago: “Security may be ten percent of the problem, or it may be ninety percent, but whichever it is, it’s the first ten percent or the first ninety percent. Without security, nothing else we do will last.”
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Defense Policy, International Security, Reconstruction, and ISIS
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

506. The Road to Mosul: Reports from the Field

Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
The Institute hosted a policy forum on Sept. 22, 2016, to discuss the progress of Iraqi security forces against the Islamic State and their imminent operation to liberate Mosul. The panelists included Brig. Gen. William Mullen and Dr. Daniel Green, who also discussed how the coming battle for Mosul relates to lessons learned during their previous tour in Fallujah, where they served during the 2007 surge and which is the topic of their book, "Fallujah Redux: The Anbar Awakening and the Struggle with al-Qaeda" (Naval Institute Press, 2014). The discussion was moderated by Michael Eisenstadt, the Institute's Kahn Fellow and Director of its Military and Security Studies Program. Brig. Gen. William F. Mullen III, USMC, is the Commanding General of Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command at Twenty-Nine Palms, California, and recently served as the Deputy Commanding General-Operations, Combined Joint Forces Land Component Command in Baghdad from June 2015 to June 2016. In addition, he has served as director of the Combined Joint Operations Center, as a senior advisor to the Iraqi security forces, as a Regimental Combat Team Operations Officer in the Fallujah area (February 2005-February 2006), and as a Battalion Commander in Fallujah (March-October 2007). Daniel R. Green is a Defense Fellow at The Washington Institute. He recently served in Iraq as a mobilized reservist with the U.S. Navy from October 2015 to May 2016; in that capacity, he worked as a Sunni Arab tribal analyst, conducting engagements with local political and tribal leaders from Anbar Province. Previously, he served with the Navy from April to October 2007 as a Tribal and Political Engagement Officer in the Fallujah area. His publications include the 2011 monograph, "The Valley's Edge: A Year with the Pashtuns in the Heartland of the Taliban" (Potomac Books), based on his service in Afghanistan.
Topic:
News Analysis
Political Geography:
Iraq

507. Education as a way out of IS: Deradicalisation in Mosul

Author:
Maisie Cook
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Middle East Research Institute (MERI)
Abstract:
With the liberation of Mosul fast becoming a reality, attention is turning to post-IS dynamics. Without sufficient deradicalisation policies, including within the education system, the narrative of the Islamic State will lie dormant or transform, creating the potential for another extremist group to emerge.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Education, Radicalization, and ISIS
Political Geography:
Iraq

508. The Reconstruction of Islamic State-Liberated Areas

Author:
Irene Costantini
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Middle East Research Institute (MERI)
Abstract:
Nearly thirteen years since the beginning of one of the largest programmes for post-conflict reconstruction, Iraq finds itself again in need of international financial assistance, but the conditions are hardly the same. This time the role of the international community should be matched by the Iraqi political leadership taking responsibility for the country and all of its population.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, and ISIS
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

509. And the Marginalisation goes on: Iraq and the Politics of Domination

Author:
Dylan O’Driscoll
Publication Date:
09-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Middle East Research Institute (MERI)
Abstract:
When the Prime Minister of Iraq, Haider al-Abadi, came into power in 2014 he promised to end the politics of dominance that was largely responsible for the rise of Islamic State (IS). Yet, with the military defeat of IS in Iraq imminent, Sunnis are still being marginalised and until this ends, the foundations of IS will remain within the society.
Topic:
Political Theory, Political Power Sharing, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

510. R2P Monitor, Issue 30, 15 November 2016

Author:
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
R2P Monitor is a bimonthly bulletin applying the Responsibility to Protect lens to populations at risk of mass atrocities around the world. Issue 30 looks at developments in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Burma/Myanmar, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Nigeria, Central African Republic and Philippines.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Law, Responsibility to Protect (R2P), and Atrocities
Political Geography:
Iraq, Sudan, Philippines, Yemen, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Nigeria, Burundi, Myanmar, South Sudan, and Central African Republic