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Apr 5, 2024 | 
tcf.org | Sajad Jiyad |Ben Robin-D’Cruz |Fanar Haddad |Zeinab F. Shuker
Iraqi prime minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani will make his first official state visit to Washington, D.C. on April 15. The visit, long in the making, comes at a moment when the two countries are renegotiating their relationship. Iraqi factions have attacked U.S. bases on a regular basis, and the fragile ceasefire that holds could be broken at any moment.
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Apr 1, 2024 | 
tcf.org | Dahlia Scheindlin |Peter Salisbury |Thanassis Cambanis |Zeinab F. Shuker
This commentary is part of a Century International series exploring a shared future for Palestine and Israel that guarantees the fundamental rights of both communities. The Gaza war has exposed the bankruptcy of the existing policy frameworks. Our “Shared Future” series intends to spur conversation and promote new, better options for security, rights, and governance—for Palestinians and Israelis. While Israel lays waste to Gaza, it has placed the West Bank under a different kind of siege.
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Mar 11, 2024 | 
tcf.org | Peter Salisbury |Thanassis Cambanis |Zeinab F. Shuker |Sam Heller
The Gaza war and the regional conflicts it has unleashed are revealing that, no matter how much political, financial, and military capital Washington invests, it can no longer force the policy outcomes it wants—if it ever could. At every turn, the United States has enabled the Israeli invasion and decimation of Gaza, even as the Biden administration has touted its hopes for peace. It is a losing strategy.
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Feb 20, 2024 | 
tcf.org | Zeinab F. Shuker |Zachary Cuyler |Ashraf Hassan |Dahlia Scheindlin
The widening fallout from October 7 is upending the Middle East in horrible ways, some new and some familiar. The Houthis have discovered their power to disrupt international shipping. Militia factions allied with Iran have crossed old red lines in their daily attacks on U.S. bases. The United States has shown itself unable to restrain the conduct of its principal regional ally, Israel, and is now facing an era of diminished influence and overextended entanglements.
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Jan 18, 2024 | 
tcf.org | Aron Lund |Peter Salisbury |Thanassis Cambanis |Zeinab F. Shuker
Molly Crabapple, a U.S.-based author and artist, reportedly woke up one day in October to find that her Instagram account had been severely restricted. “Your account can’t be shown to non-followers,” read a message when she opened the app. Instagram provided no more of an explanation for the restriction, which was mystifying. She guessed it might have been triggered when she reposted a story by Democracy Now! on the state-sanctioned militarization of Israel’s settlers in the West Bank.
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Jan 12, 2024 | 
tcf.org | Peter Salisbury |Thanassis Cambanis |Zeinab F. Shuker |Dahlia Scheindlin
After months of rising tensions in the Red Sea region, a U.S.-led coalition has launched air and missile strikes on Yemen to prevent further Houthi attacks on cargo ships and to keep shipping lanes open. But military action alone is unlikely to solve the problem, and to sustainably secure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, the United States may need to move to stop the war in Gaza—the root cause of an unfolding regional conflict that could still be halted.
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Jan 9, 2024 | 
tcf.org | Zeinab F. Shuker |Thanassis Cambanis |Dahlia Scheindlin |Sam Heller
In the lead-up to October 7, many of the key powers shaping the Middle East mistakenly believed they had found a formula to pull back from the riskiest wars and reduce explosive tensions destabilizing the region. The perceived shift from conflict to cooperation was based on four principles shared by regional stakeholders: realpolitik, economic interests, authoritarianism, and a willingness to manage rather than resolve wars.
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Dec 19, 2023 | 
tcf.org | Thanassis Cambanis |Dahlia Scheindlin |Sam Heller |Zeinab F. Shuker
As Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza continues—with nearly 20,000 dead, more than two-thirds women and children—much of the world is holding its breath in anticipation of some kind of longer-term cessation of the violence. Sadly, however, the quieting of the bombs and guns will merely mark the end of one chapter of Gaza’s suffering. It is unclear where the 1.2 million Gazans who are now displaced—80 percent of the population—will live.
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Dec 1, 2023 | 
tcf.org | Thanassis Cambanis |Zeinab F. Shuker |Sajad Jiyad |Dahlia Scheindlin
In the summer of 2014, the Islamic State cemented its hold over much of Iraq, and unleashed a torrent of atrocities. The spectacle of 1,700 Iraqi army cadets summarily executed at Camp Speicher on the banks of the Tigris sent shockwaves of grief and fear through the nation.
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Dec 1, 2023 | 
tcf.org | Sajad Jiyad |Thanassis Cambanis |Zeinab F. Shuker |Zachary Cuyler
In his new book, God’s Man in Iraq: The Life and Leadership of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Century International fellow Sajad Jiyad draws on original sources and hundreds of interviews during decades of fieldwork inside Iraq to show how Sistani, as the revered senior Shia cleric in a Shia-majority country, commands the loyalty of millions of faithful.
