Law, Power, and Justice

U.S. military force and sanctions can’t fix the country’s broken politics.

the Biden administration’s hasty withdrawal from the region was based on its claim that it was the most stable it had been for decades. And yet, in Iraq, U.S. bases are once again under attack from armed groups, endangering the temporary cease-fire which had allowed Baghdad and Washington to sign the Joint Security Cooperation Dialogue in August 2023 and to begin wider negotiations, including on the removal of U.S. troops from the country. Regional violence after October 7 has complicated this process.

So has the rise of an “axis of resistance,” a network of Iran-allied armed groups that includes Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada in Iraq and Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen. These groups are politically, economically, militarily, and ideologically entrenched in their states, and are united by their shared opposition to foreign occupation.

— Read on www.foreignaffairs.com/iraq/why-america-still-failing-iraq