Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- May 11, 2016

People gather at the scene of a car bomb attack in Baghdad's mainly Shi'ite district of Sadr City, Iraq, May 11, 2016. REUTERS/Wissm al-Okili

Ranj Alaaldin, The Guardian: It’s Iraq, not Isis, that’s on the way out

If today’s atrocity in Baghdad draws Shia militias into reprisals against Sunnis, it would kill off hopes for the democratic restoration of the Iraqi state and society

“Isis is an idea, not the first of its kind and not the last of its kind,” said a powerful security official when I visited Iraq last month. Indeed, as the international community boasts of Isis’s demise, the jihadists struck a Shia district in Baghdad today, killing at least 63 people and wounding 80 in a series of devastating market bombings.

Officials say that Isis has lost almost half its territory in Iraq and more than 20% in Syria. It is true that Isis leaders are being eliminated and its infrastructure devastated. But while Isis may be losing the territories it governs, today’s attack (and others over the past months) is a reminder that it is still able to commit atrocities across Iraq, and continue to operate as it has done for more than a decade.

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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- May 11, 2016

Mosul: suspicion and hostility cloud fight to recapture Iraqi city from Isis -- Martin Chulov, The Guardian

Iran's Oil Sector Returns to Form -- Matthew Bey, Stratfor

Algeria economy: 'The worst is to come' -- Djamila Ould Khettab, Al Jazeera

The sun has not set on oil and mining industries in Africa -- Olusegun Obasanjo, Business Day
BY OLUSEGUN OBASANJO

N. Korea's triumphal congress does little to win over a frustrated China -- Stuart Leavenworth, CSM

Cultural Revolution concert fuels China power struggle rumours -- Tom Phillips, The Guardian

How America Picks Its Next Move in the South China Sea -- Zack Cooper & Bonnie S. Glaser, National Interest

China, India and what a new ‘red telephone’ would mean for the world -- Peter Marino, Reuters

Ukraine's Free Trade Deal Was Just a Start -- Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg

The Geopolitics of a Ukrainian Border Town -- Lili Bayer, Geopolitical Futures

3 revealing myths about Brazil's crisis -- Brian Winter, VOX

Brazil’s Democracy to Suffer Grievous Blow Today as Unelectable, Corrupt Neoliberal is Installed -- Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept

Obama Should Go To Hiroshima -- But Not For The Reason He Gave -- Michael Auslin, Forbes

Spike or glut? Two very possible—and radically different—scenarios for the future price of oil -- Steve LeVine, Quartz

Mapped: The countries that host the most refugees -- Annalisa Merelli, Quartz

6 comments:

James said...

Check out all the stuff the troopie in the foreground has strapped on his rifle.

jimbrown said...

Can 5000 us troops fight their way out? We're very exposed with enemies all around.

jimbrown said...

Can 5000 us troops fight their way out? We're very exposed with enemies all around.

James said...

jimbrown,
That's one of those questions that's hard to answer. Depends on where they are, where they're trying to go to, who they're fighting etc, etc, etc. But what is certain that it's a major failure of upper leadership (political and military) for something like that to even happen.

B.Poster said...

Very well said James.

James said...

Thanks B., but when you blabber as much as I do, you get at least one out of hundred.