The Pentagon has spent more than $800 billion on military operations in Iraq. But that doesn’t include money needed to care for veterans, rebuild the country or pay interest on war debt.
The destruction of a country’s historical and cultural heritage sites is a distressing byproduct of conflict, but there are now strategies in place to prevent it happening.
Gordon Adams, American University School of International Service
US officials have consistently lied over decades about progress in the Afghanistan war. The lies are no surprise, writes a foreign affairs scholar – but they have profound consequences.
The National Intelligence Council works inside government but is little understood outside. Yet it has helped respond to almost all the major foreign policy challenges of the last 40 years.
Iraq beat the Islamic State. Now, its Shia government is jailing and even executing all suspected terrorists – most of them Sunni Muslims. The clampdown may inflame a centuries-old sectarian divide.
Keeping the water and power on, managing sewers and collecting garbage will help communities shattered by the Syrian civil war rebuild – and keep out the Islamic State, says a former aid official.
Gordon Adams, American University School of International Service
The US was once the dominant force in the Middle East. That old order has disappeared. Now the new powers are Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Russia – and the US needs a new policy for the region.
The question is no longer how to repel all threats. Instead, it’s how can we organise ourselves as a society to remain ourselves in the face of these multiple threats.
The recent parliamentary election in Iraqi may have been the most transformative of the post-Saddam era, a pollster from Baghdad and an American academic explain.
Many presidents have radically changed US foreign policy. Truman created his own doctrine. Carter gave up the Panama Canal. But a presidential historian sees danger in Trump’s decision-making style.
The likes of Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton and Michael Hayden are correctly issuing dire warnings about fascism under Trump. But what about their own actions?
If journal editors fail to retract or properly flag data revealed as inaccurate, they leave open the possibility that it’ll be cited for years to come.