Next Steps For U S Foreign Policy On Syria And Iraq

Next steps for U.S. foreign policy on Syria and Iraq : hearing before the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, second session, November 19, 2014.

This will be our 10th hearing dedicated to examining the Syrian conflict, the precarious situation in Iraq, and the rise of ISIL. The common theme we have seen in our previous nine hearings is that the administration has failed to put together a coherent, a consistent, and decisive policies and strategies to address these threats. We have gone from remaining silent when the Syrian opposition first spoke out against Assad in March 2011, before all the foreign fighters and the terrorist groups coopted the anti-Assad campaign, to finally calling on Assad to step down 5 months after his brutal crackdown began, and back to remaining silent again, and allowing Assad to remain in power. We remain on the sidelines dithering and indecisive until President Obama laid down his now infamous red line on Syrian chemical weapons. As we know, Assad unleashed chemical weapons on his people, and that red line was crossed without any repercussions for Assad, damaging our credibility in the region. Obama has decided to arm and train Syrian rebels, but not in the fight against Assad, and these rebels are supposed to fight against ISIL, but only in a defensive posture. Our allies in the gulf and the coalition are ready and eager to support us in the battle against ISIL, but they need to see a U.S. that is committed to the fight. They just aren't seeing that now and expect a more comprehensive approach, which includes removing Assad from power, and that means addressing the Iranian issue.

Holland analyses foreign policy debates in the Anglosphere (US, UK and Australia) during the Syrian Civil War.

War, nuclear weapons, and terrorism are all major threats to US security, but a new set of emerging threats are challenging the current threat response apparatus and our ability to come up with creative and effective solutions. This book considers new, 'non-traditional' security issues such as: transnational organized crime, immigration and border security, cybersecurity, countering violent extremism and terrorism, environmental and energy security, as well as the rise of external actors. The work examines the major challenges and trends in security and explores the policy responses of the U.S. government. By using international relations theory as an analytical approach, Fonseca and Rosen present how these security threats have evolved over time.

This book makes a realpolitik argument for supporting democracy in the Arab world, drawing on four decades of policy experience.

Explains the trajectory of Turkish foreign policy behavior vis-...-vis the West, identifying the major factors behind intra-alliance opposition.

Why do presidents and their advisors often make sub-optimal decisions on military intervention, escalation, de-escalation, and termination of conflicts? The leading concept of group dynamics, groupthink, offers one explanation: policy-making groups make sub-optimal decisions due to their desire for conformity and uniformity over dissent, leading to a failure to consider other relevant possibilities. But presidential advisory groups are often fragmented and divisive. This book therefore scrutinizes polythink, a group decision-making dynamic whereby different members in a decision-making unit espouse a plurality of opinions and divergent policy prescriptions, resulting in a disjointed decision-making process or even decision paralysis. The book analyzes eleven national security decisions, including the national security policy designed prior to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the decisions to enter into and withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2007 "surge" decision, the crisis over the Iranian nuclear program, the UN Security Council decision on the Syrian Civil War, the faltering Kerry Peace Process in the Middle East, and the U.S. decision on military operations against ISIS. Based on the analysis of these case studies, the authors address implications of the polythink phenomenon, including prescriptions for avoiding and/or overcoming it, and develop strategies and tools for what they call Productive Polythink. The authors also show the applicability of polythink to business, industry, and everyday decisions.