U.S. and Iranian Strategic Competition

U.S. and Iranian Strategic Competition

Author: Charles Loi

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 59

ISBN-13:

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Iraq is a key focus of the strategic competition between the United States and Iran. The history of this competition has been shaped by the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988, the Gulf War, the Iraq War that began in 2003, and the events that have followed. Both the US and Iran have competed to shape the structure of Iraq's politics, governance, economics, and security. The US has used its status as an occupying power and Iraq's main source of aid, and Iran has used its networks, patronage, and support of key Shiite factions to win friends and influence policy in the same areas. Iraq's leaders face critical choices about their ability to put an end to Iraq's internal violence, the extent to which they align themselves with the US and Arab world versus Iran, and how to reshape and modernize governance, Iraq's economy, and Iraq's security forces. In the process, the US and Iran will continue to compete for influence, especially in aid, military sales, and security training. If the US does not compete skillfully and consistently, Iraq's insecurity and Iran's economic ties to Iraq may tether Iraq closer and closer to Iran while US politicians cut down on the US presence in Iraq and aid. Iran's relative influence in Iraq may rise even if Iraqi nationalism chafes against Iranian interference. The US unleashed forces in 2003 it must now deal with or risk seeing Iran as the real winner of the invasion.


The Iran–Iraq War

The Iran–Iraq War

Author: Williamson Murray

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-09-04

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 1139993216

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The Iran-Iraq War is one of the largest, yet least documented conflicts in the history of the Middle East. Drawing from an extensive cache of captured Iraqi government records, this book is the first comprehensive military and strategic account of the war through the lens of the Iraqi regime and its senior military commanders. It explores the rationale and decision-making processes that drove the Iraqis as they grappled with challenges that, at times, threatened their existence. Beginning with the bizarre lack of planning by the Iraqis in their invasion of Iran, the authors reveal Saddam's desperate attempts to improve the competence of an officer corps that he had purged to safeguard its loyalty to his tyranny, and then to weather the storm of suicidal attacks by Iranian religious revolutionaries. This is a unique and important contribution to our understanding of the history of war and the contemporary Middle East.


Reconstructed Lives

Reconstructed Lives

Author: Haleh Esfandiari

Publisher: Woodrow Wilson Center Press

Published: 1997-07

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9780801856198

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Iranian women tell in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. The Islamic revolution of 1979 transformed all areas of Iranian life. For women, the consequences were extensive and profound, as the state set out to reverse legal and social rights women had won and to dictate many aspects of women's lives, including what they could study and how they must dress and relate to men. Reconstructed Lives presents Iranian women telling in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. Through a series of interviews with professional and working women in Iran—doctors, lawyers, writers, professors, secretaries, businesswomen—Haleh Esfandiari gathers dramatic accounts of what has happened to their lives as women in an Islamic society. She and her informants describe the strategies by which women try to and sometimes succeed in subverting the state's agenda. Esfandiari also provides historical background on the women's movement in Iran. She finds evidence in Iran's experience that even women from "traditional" and working classes do not easily surrender rights or access they have gained to education, career opportunities, and a public role.


Iraq, Its Neighbors, and the United States

Iraq, Its Neighbors, and the United States

Author: Henri J. Barkey

Publisher: US Institute of Peace Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1601270771

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"[This book] examines how Iraq's evolving political order affects its complex relationships with its neighbors and the United States. The book depicts a region unbalanced, shaped by new and old tensions, struggling with a classic collective action dilemma, and anxious about Iraq's political future, as well as America's role in the region, all of which suggest trouble ahead absent concerted efforts to promote regional cooperation. In the volume's case studies ... [scholars] review Iraq's bilateral relationships with Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Arab states, Syria, and Jordan and explore how Iraq's neighbors could advance the country's transition to security and stability. The volume also looks at the United States' relations with and long-term strategic interests in Iraq and offers recommendations for how the United States can help Iraq strengthen and grow"--Page 4 of cover.


The Iranian Puzzle Piece

The Iranian Puzzle Piece

Author: Marine Corps University (U.S.)

Publisher: Government Printing Office

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 116

ISBN-13:

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Purpose: A one-day international symposium hosted by the Marine Corps University (MCU) and the Marine Corps University Foundation to enhance the overall understanding of Iran, exploring its internal dynamics, regional perspectives, and extra-regional factors and examining its near-term political and strategic options and their potential impact on the course of action of the United States and the USMC.


Iraq – From War to a New Authoritarianism

Iraq – From War to a New Authoritarianism

Author: Toby Dodge

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-10-03

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 1351224123

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Iraq recovered its full sovereignty at the end of 2011, with the departure of all US military forces. The 2003 invasion was undertaken to dismantle a regime that had long threatened its own population and regional peace, as well as to establish a stable, democratic state in the heart of the Middle East. This Adelphi looks at the legacy of that intervention and subsequent state-building efforts. It analyses the evolution of the insurgency, the descent into full-scale civil war and the implementation of the surge as a counterinsurgency strategy. It goes on to examine US and Iraqi efforts to reconstruct the states military and civilian capacity. By developing a clear understanding of the current situation in Iraq, this book seeks to answer three questions that are central to the countrys future. Will it continue to suffer high levels of violence or even slide back into a vicious civil war? Will Iraq continue on a democratic path, as exemplified by the three competitive national elections held since 2005? And does the new Iraq pose a threat to its neighbours?


The MENA Region: a great power competition

The MENA Region: a great power competition

Author: AA.VV

Publisher: Ledizioni

Published: 2019-10-01

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 8855260731

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The volume deals with competition among regional and external players for the redistribution of power and international status in the Middle East and North Africa, with a focus on Russia’s renewed role and the implications for US interests. Over the last few years, a crisis of legitimacy has beset the liberal international order. In this context, the configuration of regional orders has come into question, as in the extreme case of the current collapse in the Middle East. The idea of a “Russian resurgence” in the Middle East set against a perceived American withdrawal has captured the attention of policymakers and scholars alike, warranting further examination. This volume, a joint publication by ISPI and the Atlantic Council, gathers analysis on Washington’s and Moscow’s policy choices in the MENA region and develops case studies of the two powers’ engagament in the countries beset by major crises.


America's Role in Nation-Building

America's Role in Nation-Building

Author: James Dobbins

Publisher: Rand Corporation

Published: 2003-08-01

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0833034863

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The post-World War II occupations of Germany and Japan set standards for postconflict nation-building that have not since been matched. Only in recent years has the United States has felt the need to participate in similar transformations, but it is now facing one of the most challenging prospects since the 1940s: Iraq. The authors review seven case studies--Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan--and seek lessons about what worked well and what did not. Then, they examine the Iraq situation in light of these lessons. Success in Iraq will require an extensive commitment of financial, military, and political resources for a long time. The United States cannot afford to contemplate early exit strategies and cannot afford to leave the job half completed.


Theology of Discontent

Theology of Discontent

Author: Hamid Dabashi

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published:

Total Pages: 710

ISBN-13: 9781412839723

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Scores of books and articles have been published, addressing one or another aspect of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Missing from this body of scholarship, however, has been a comprehensive analysis of the intellectual and ideological cornerstones of one of the most dramatic revolutions in our time. In this remarkable volume, Hamid Dabashi brings together, in a sustained and engagingly written narrative, the leading revolutionaries who have shaped the ideological disposition of this cataclysmic event. Dabashi has spent over ten years studying the writings, in their original Persian and Arabic, of the most influential Iranian clerics and thinkers. Examining the revolutionary sentiments and ideas of such figures as Jalal Al-e Ahmad, Ali Sharicati, Morteza Motahhari, Sayyad Abolhasan Bani-Sadr, and finally the Ayatollah Khomeini, the work also analyzes the larger historical and theoretical implications of any construction of "the Islamic Ideology." Carefully located in the social and intellectual context of the four decades preceding the 1979 revolution, Theology of Discontent is the definitive treatment of the ideological foundations of the Islamic Revolution, with particular attention to the larger, more enduring ramifications of this revolution for radical Islamic revivalism in the entire Muslim world. This volume will be of interest to Islamicists, Middle East historians and specialists, as well as scholars and students of "liberation theologies," comparative religious revolutions, and mass collective behavior. Bruce Lawrence of Duke University calls this volume "a superb and unprecedented study.... In brilliant figural strokes, he arrays EuroAmerican sociological theory as the crucial backdrop of a deeper understanding of contemporary Iranian history." Hamid Dabashi is professor of Persian studies at Columbia University. He is the author of, among other works, the acclaimed Authority in Islam: From the Rise of Muhammad to the Establishment of the Umayyads, issued by Transaction, which won the Association of American Publishers Award for most outstanding professional and scholarly publication in religion and philosophy.