Product Description: The site of the ancient Bronze Age civilization of Dilmun, Bahrain was a trade hub linking Mesopotamia and the Indus valley until a drop in trade from India caused the Dilmun civilization to decline around 2,000 B.C. The inhabitants of Bahrain converted to Islam in the 7th century...read more

Kuwait has been pivotal to all the U.S. interventions in the Persian Gulf region since the 1980s because of its location, its role as the object of past Iraqi aggression, and its close cooperation with the United States. Kuwait remains a key to the U.S. ability to act militarily in the northern Persian Gulf region now that all U.S. forces have left Iraq. Kuwait’s relations with the post- Saddam government in Iraq have warmed significantly in recent years through resolution of many of the territorial, economic, and political issues from the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Product Description: The UAE’s relatively open borders and economy have won praise from advocates of expanded freedoms in the Middle East, but have also produced financial excesses, social ills such as human trafficking, and opportunity for UAE-based Iranian businesses to try to circumvent international sanctions...read more

Product Description: A priority of Obama Administration policy has been to reduce the perceived threat posed by Iran to a broad range of U.S. interests. Well before Iran’s nuclear issue rose to the forefront of U.S. concerns about Iran in 2003, the United States had seen Iran’s support for regional militant groups, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, as efforts to undermine U...read more

Product Description: Since the 2011 U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, sectarian divisions have widened, fueling a revival of a Sunni Muslim insurgent challenge to Iraq’s stability. Iraq’s Sunni Arab Muslims resent Shiite political domination and perceived discrimination by the government of Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki...read more

Product Description: The current international security mission terminates at the end of 2014 and will likely transition to a smaller mission consisting mostly of training the Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF). The “residual force” that will likely remain in Afghanistan after 2014 is expected to consist of about 6,000-10,000 U...read more

Product Description: The Obama Administration and several of its partner countries are seeking to reduce U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan while continuing to build Afghan governing and security capacity to defend the country by the end of 2014...read more

Product Description: The capacity, transparency, and legitimacy of Afghan governance are considered crucial to Afghan stability after U.S.-led NATO forces turn over the security mission to Afghan leadership by the end of 2014. The size and capability of the Afghan governing structure has increased significantly since the Taliban regime fell in late 2001, but the government remains weak and rampant with corruption...read more

Product Description: Developing effective Afghan justice sector institutions is considered by many observers to be essential in winning the support of the Afghan population, improving the Afghan government’s credibility and legitimacy, and reducing support for insurgent factions...read more

Strict sanctions on Iran—sanctions that primarily target Iran’s key energy sector and its access to the international financial system—harmed Iran’s economy to the point where Iran’s leaders, on November 24, 2013, accepted an interim agreement (“Joint Plan of Action,” JPA) that halts expansion of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for temporary and modest sanctions relief. The June 14, 2013, election of the relatively moderate Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s president was an indication of the growing public pressure on the regime to achieve an easing of sanctions.

After extensive sectarian conflict during 2006-2008, but with U.S. troops still present, Iraq’s political system evolved into relatively peaceful political competition and formation of crosssectarian alliances. However, the dominant factions have, by several accounts, often exercised questionable use of key levers of power and legal institutions to arrest or intimidate their opponents. This infighting is based on the belief of many factions that holding political power may mean the difference between poverty and prosperity, or even life and death. The schisms significantly delayed agreement on a new government following the March 7, 2010, national elections for the Council of Representatives (COR, parliament). With U.S. diplomatic help, on November 10, 2010, major ethnic and sectarian factions finally agreed on a framework for a new government under which Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is serving a second term. As the completion of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq at the end of 2011 approached, relations among major factions frayed, and worsened substantially after the last U.S. troops left Iraq on December 18, 2011. Sunni Arabs, always fearful that Maliki sought unchallenged power for Shiite factions allied with him, accused him of an outright power grab as he sought to purge the two highest ranking Sunni Arabs from government (a deputy President and deputy Prime Minister). The Sunnis have sought to enlist the help of the Kurds to curb Maliki’s perceived ambitions; the Kurds also distrust Maliki over territorial, political, and economic issues. The apparent unraveling of the political consensus has created conditions under which the insurgency that hampered U.S. policy during 2004-2008 continues to conduct occasional high casualty attacks, including over a dozen near-simultaneous bombings on December 22. The open break within Iraq’s government in December 2011 has called into question many of the assumptions that justified a full U.S. withdrawal – a withdrawal that was announced by President Obama on October 21, 2011 when Iraqi factions refused to grant legal immunity to any U.S. forces after the end of 2011. That date had been specified as a final withdrawal date under the November 2008 U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement, but U.S. negotiations with Iraq during 2011 sought to extend the agreement to allow for the presence of 3,000 – 5,000 U.S. forces after that time. Despite the lingering doubts, when the decision to withdrawal all U.S. troops was announced, Administration and Iraqi leaders asserted that Iraq’s governing and security maintenance capacity is sufficient to continue to build democracy, enact long delayed national oil laws, and undertake other measures without a major U.S. military presence. Iraq’s security forces number over 650,000 members, increasingly well armed and well trained – enough to justify selling Iraq such sophisticated equipment as U.S. F-16 aircraft. Some movement on national oil laws had occurred since August 2011. The assertions have sought to rebut outside criticism that Iraq’s factions lacked focus on governance, or on improving key services, such as electricity. The view of the Administration and others is that Iraqi factions, with U.S. and other help, will be able to work through the severe political disputes and ongoing violence, and will also be willing and able to resist increased Iranian influence in Iraq. The Administration states that U.S. training will continue using programs for Iraq similar to those with other countries in which there is no U.S. troop presence, and about 15,000 U.S. personnel, including contractors, remain in Iraq under State Department authority to exert U.S. influence. Continuing the security relationship in the absence of U.S. troops in Iraq, and developing the civilian bilateral relationship, was the focus of the U.S. visit of Prime Minister Maliki on December 12, 2011.

Nearly three years after the 2011 U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, sectarian divisions and the Sunniled uprising in neighboring Syria have fueled a revival of radical Islamist Sunni Muslim insurgent groups that are attempting to undermine Iraq’s stability. Iraq’s Sunni Arab Muslims resent the Shiite political domination and perceived discrimination by the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Iraq’s Kurds are embroiled in separate political disputes with the Baghdad government over territorial, political, and economic issues. The rifts caused a significant uprising led by the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, now also known by the name Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), that began December 26, 2013 and gained control of several cities in Anbar Province. Earlier, unrest delayed some provincial elections during April-June 2013 and the latest uprising could affect the legitimacy of national elections for a new parliament and government set for April 30, 2014. Maliki is widely expected to seek to retain his post after that vote. The latest violence has exposed weaknesses in the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) in the absence of direct U.S. military involvement in Iraq. To date, the 800,000-person ISF has countered the escalating violence by itself, but the violence killed nearly 9,000 Iraqis in 2013—more than double the figure for all of 2012. Informal security structures put in place during the U.S. intervention in Iraq in 2003-2011 have fractured or faltered in the late 2013-early 2014 ISIL challenge. And there are a growing number of reports that some Shiite militias have reactivated to retaliate for violence against Shiites. The American Administration and Congress continue to cultivate Iraq as an ally in part to preserve the legacy of the U.S intervention and to prevent Iraq from falling under the sway of Iran. Asserting that the Sunni-led rebellion in Syria is emboldening Iraqi Sunnis, Maliki has not joined U.S. and other Arab state calls for Syrian President Bashar Al Assad to leave office and Iraq has not consistently sought to prevent Iranian overflights of arms deliveries to Syria. Still, the legacy of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, Arab and Persian differences, and Iraq’s efforts to reestablish its place in the Arab world limit Iranian influence over the Baghdad government.

Product Description: Book annotation not available for this title.Title: TerrorismAuthor: Katzman, Kenneth (EDT)Publisher: Nova Science Pub IncPublication Date: 2008/10/01Number of Pages: 75Binding Type: PAPERBACKLibrary of Congress: 2008038239