Experts from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest analysis and perspective on the world’s critical hot spots, U.S. and global security and issues involved in violent conflict, based on the Institute’s work on the ground and with key individuals, governments and organizations. They give interviews and background briefings to journalists and write for news outlets around the world.
"There is a vast need in Iraq in political, diplomatic, economic and social terms that needs to be addressed, and you need to have a plan for that," says Sarhang Hamasaeed, a former deputy director of the Council of Ministers of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq, now director of Middle East programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
The connection between violent conflict and the famines that risk the lives of 20 million people in multiple countries of Africa and the Middle East was the topic of one of four appearances by USIP experts on Capitol Hill last week.
Curbing US involvement abroad was a signal campaign promise of the new US administration. Anything that smacked of nation-building drew the sharpest criticism. The appeal to many voters of such disengagement is understandable and the view is woven into an evolving foreign policy.
Sarhang Hamasaeed, director of Middle East programmes at the Institute of Peace, said Abadi was hoping for US assistance in training Iraqi troops and for US military help in logistical and intelligence support. “Abadi thinks American troops on the ground are not necessary,” Hamasaeed said.
On a crisp spring day in March, in the northern city of Sulaymaniyah, I met Abu Islam, a senior isis leader nicknamed the Ghost of isis by Iraqi intelligence for his elusiveness.
“At the moment, there are overlapping and converging interests in that they are both fighting a common enemy which is IS,” said Sarhang Hamasaeed, director of Middle East Programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington. “At the moment they see a value of the United States presence there.”
Iraq’s Prime Minister al-Abadi has increased public confidence in the country’s military, but corruption remains an obstacle to his effort to improve governance and stabilize Iraq, USIP's Sarhang Hamasaeed told SiriusXM Radio. Al-Abadi sees consistent support from the Trump administration as essential to a stabilizing Iraq following the war against ISIS, Hamasaeed says.
“Our main objective in this current environment of liberation is to prevent revenge acts of violence,” says Osama Gharizi, Middle East program manager for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), an architect of the Tikrit and other reconciliation efforts.
It is well known that the international community has voiced similar concerns that the NLD government has not matched its words and actions to meet the urgency of continuing violence against the stateless Rohingya Muslim population in northern Rakhine State, despite recognizing the difficult political bind and terrible inheritance granted the NLD leadership by its predecessors.
Washington, D.C. – President Trump has assured Iraq’s government of greater U.S. support as it confronts ISIS and stabilizes the country, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said today. “We have been given assurances that the support will not only continue but will accelerate,” al-Abadi said at the U.S. Institute of Peace immediately after meeting President Trump at the White House.