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Development assistance funding by international donors is rarely channeled through local actors. While there are strong normative and practical arguments to localize funding (i.e. directly channel funding through local actors), progress has been piecemeal as donors are largely left to their own devices to decide how/when/where and how much to localize.
The post Making Foreign Aid Work: Navigating the Aid Localisation Conundrum appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

By Amélie Jaques-Apke. As Europe begins to emerge from a pandemic, we begin to evaluate emerging
political damages. Now more than ever, we must understand how radical right populist parties design their message toward vulnerable, crisis-shaken populations. The objective of this study is to reflect critically on the interplay between democracy and populism, exploring recent discursive developments of
the parties Vox and The League and its power relations, which are linked to the exogenous shocks provoked
by the pandemic. The author used qualitative techniques of content analysis, and conducted interviews with scholars and political actors, and group discussions with local actors for several months.

In a recent public announcement of little surprise, except perhaps to the Iran-obsessed punditry and political classes in Washington and Tel Aviv, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Iran does not have total control over the proxy groups it supports and finances. It's a wonder what took so long. Proxy relationships are notoriously complex, fickle, and unpredictable; more often than not, they disappoint the sponsor, leave the latter's strategic aims unfulfilled, or at the very worst, come back to haunt with a vengeance. Recent U.S. history has ample lessons of the pitfalls of proxy relationships, from the South Vietnamese Army to the Mujahideen. Contemporary times are no better. The proxy relationship between the United States and the Syrian Democratic Forces, while successful in some regards, ultimately failed, according to one report from New America, because it couldn't manage the unavoidable downside risk "that an intricate strategy of engaging proxies to fight in foreign wars can be so quickly undone."Proxies may seem like an easy fix and politically palatable to domestic audiences more accepting of passing off the dying to someone far away rather than their own brethren, but the drawbacks can also be immense. Proxies can be both brutal and incompetent, as one expert has observed, "often go[ing] their own way, pursuing their own interests while pocketing the money and other support they receive." Their sponsors can be implicated in any potential human rights abuses or war crimes. In other words, what they give is not always in line with what they get and what they're tasked to do is not always what they do in reality. Add to this the fact that both proxy and sponsor are often at the whim of shifting political winds, matters can go sideways quite quickly and grow increasingly complex. So why is Iran's relationship with its many regional proxies considered exceptional to all this?Some of the reason is good old-fashioned Orientalism, a propensity to see the behavior of Middle Easterners as somehow different from the rest. In this case, groups like Hezbollah, the Houthis, or the sub-groups of Iraq's PMF, are seen as acting as if beholden at all costs to the aims of a wily and omnipresent puppet master in Tehran because of arms transfers, financial support, or the sharing of a supposed airtight alignment and commitment to religion or ideology, making them no more than servile little hatchlings birthed into this world by their parasitoid wasp overlord, as Thomas Friedman would have it. Such ingrained thinking denudes proxies, as local actors in their own right, of agency. Few point out, for example, that Houthi attacks in the Red Sea should actually be taken seriously as a reaction to the specific actions undertaken by Israel in Gaza, rather than at the direction or discretion of Iran, and fewer still analyze their actions in the long history of solidarity between Yemenis and Palestinians dating back to the days of partition. Only recently, during a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing, with the realization that strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen have not deterred their disruptive activities in the Red Sea, was it considered that maybe their actions are actually relatable to the war in Gaza. The Houthis, like many local actors across the Middle East, have the agency and the desire to forge their own destiny, both in their home country and across the region. Whether their strategic aims align with Iran or not, and under what circumstances, as is the case with the U.S. and its own proxies, is a matter of consideration. But reducing Houthi actions primarily to their relationship with Iran essentially casts aside the way they see and operate in the world, as if they move about as pre-programmed robots, and not as a group that might have their own ax to grind with an American-enforced regional security architecture, not only impacting the situation in Yemen and their own pursuit of power there but elsewhere. Besides, seeing Houthi behavior as mainly the handiwork of Iran exudes an intellectual laziness that not only foregoes the assessment of complex local and regional dynamics, but also holds deep implications in terms of policy solutions. If Iran is the only problem, then cutting "off the head of the snake" or "Bomb, Bomb, Iran," long advocated to varying degrees by multiple Arab governments, Israel, and many in the halls of Washington, is the solution, setting the potential stage for even more Western military intervention or escalating regional conflict. It's well documented how that turns out. On the other hand, to assess the Houthis as a group with an agency and history of their own requires the search for more complex and contextual solutions, which may not be entirely solvable through military force, but might include negotiation and accommodation, and in the very least the recognition that military actions undertaken by the U.S. and its allies elicit reactions from local actors on their own terms.

In the past four months, more than 2.4 million Sudanese people have fled their homes due to ongoing conflict, and the number continues to increase. A series of failed ceasefires and a growing humanitarian crisis begs the question: how are local pro-democracy actors sustaining their efforts? For the past ten years, Resistance and Change Committees […]
The post "Even a tank cannot stop the breaking dawn": Resistance and Change Committees in a Warring Sudan appeared first on International Republican Institute.

Roughly ten years ago, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, swept across Mesopotamia. At its peak, it controlled large swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory, equivalent in size to Great Britain, subjecting more than 10 million people to its brutal governance. Although the "caliphate" lost its state apparatus years ago, ISIS remains a destructive force by operating sleeper cells and waging deadly ambushes in Iraq and Syria. The remnants of ISIS have recently been conducting hit-and-run attacks in the Syrian governorates of Deir Ezzor, Homs, and Raqqa. The targets have been the Kurdish-led Peoples' Protection Units (YPG), the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), and Iran-backed militias aligned with President Bashar al-Assad's government, including the Afghan Shi'a Fatemiyoun Brigade.ISIS continues posing a "considerable threat in Syria," Danny Makki, an analyst covering Syria, told Responsible Statecraft. "The group maintains the capacity to conduct deadly guerrilla attacks and sabotage operations which, despite the group's diminished presence, have inflicted significant loss of life on Kurdish and Syrian government areas in the country." ISIS, Makki explained, does "not operate out of a specific area — there's no big town or base they have, so it's a difficult war to fight [against] them."Al-Sukhnah, located in the Homs Governorate of Eastern Syria, is a strategic town that has repeatedly been the target of ISIS attacks. According to Makki, ISIS has recently come close to capturing it. A year ago, ISIS waged its deadliest terrorist attack since January 2022, slaughtering 53 Syrians who were gathering desert truffles near al-Sukhnah. In the Homs Governorate, ISIS forces killed at least 14 SAA soldiers near the ancient city of Palmyra just last month.Debating the U.S. military presenceThe possibility of an ISIS resurgence cannot be discounted given the growing instability caused by the expansion of Israel's war on Gaza throughout the Levant with escalating tit-for-tat attacks between the U.S. military and Iran-aligned groups in both Syria and Iraq. Amid debates in Washington about the future of the U.S. military presence in Syria, ISIS-related factors — along with U.S. interests in countering Iranian and Russian influence in the Middle East while keeping the Assad regime weak — are given weight.A concern raised by many officials in Washington is the possibility that a withdrawal of the roughly 900 U.S. troops in Syria could result in an explosive comeback by ISIS. Whether such concerns are valid or not is debatable. Nonetheless, given the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, the Biden administration does not want the departure of U.S. military forces from another country to end in a takeover by violent extremists."The ISIS-related detention and displacement sites under Kurdish control represent a significant, latent threat," said Mona Yacoubian, a senior adviser at the US Institute of Peace."If the Kurds for some reason — for example, if they come under major Turkish attack or should the US withdraw from Syria — are no longer able to maintain control of those sites, ISIS would virtually overnight burst back onto the scene as a powerful force," Yacoubian told RS. "The ISIS detention sites alone hold some 10,000 ISIS fighters, a veritable 'ISIS army in detention' which could quickly pose a major threat to global interests if they break free."
"If you suddenly see thousands of hardened Islamic State fighters being set free [from Kurdish-controlled prisons], then yes, you're going to have a problem in these areas very soon," agreed Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International who focuses on Syria.Yacoubian's view is that the U.S. military presence in Syria has "been a victim of its own success." By maintaining a military footprint in the country, which has cost the U.S. relatively little in terms of blood and treasure, Washington has "enabled a strong Kurdish partner force that has been able to help stabilize the area and most importantly guard and control ISIS-related detention and displacement sites."
"This unsung success has essentially gone under the radar," argued Yacoubian. It ultimately amounts to "an instance where the absence of something happening, i.e. major ISIS resurgence, is the success. It is famously difficult to tout a non-event as a success!"Other experts, however, reject this idea that the continued U.S. occupation of roughly one-third of Syria's territory has made the country or the region safer from ISIS.The argument that ending the U.S. military presence in Syria would somehow empower ISIS is "absolutely ludicrous," charges Karim Emile Bitar, who teaches international relations at Saint Joseph University of Beirut."Those who peddle these sorts of arguments seem to have been living on another planet for the past 30 years," Bitar argued. "We now have plenty of evidence that whether in Iraq or in Syria [...] the presence of U.S. forces on the ground is actually what empowers and enables these groups and feeds their propaganda."The Lebanese scholar pointed to Barack Obama's 2015 interview with VICE News in which the then-U.S. president asserted that ISIS was a direct successor of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which itself blossomed as a result of the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation. Obama called it a salient example of unintended consequences and urged foreign policymakers in the future to aim before shooting.
There is much to say about the responsibility of the George W. Bush administration's disastrous invasion of Iraq for ISIS's formation and rise. But one must also recognize that the way in which the U.S. would withdraw from Syria, if it so decides, matters. Among other questions to be addressed are, which local actors would Washington coordinate the pull-out with? And what would such coordination look like?"There's a serious risk of short-term disruption and conflict, should the United States withdraw without adequate arrangements with other actors in the region," according to Lund. "Changing a long-established status quo is always risky, even if it's an unsatisfying status quo—or even a really bad one.""Should the current security architecture collapse, such as after a U.S. withdrawal, it's likely that the Islamic State would exploit that and gain in power and influence," he added. Lund also noted that a "meteoric rise of the 2013, 2014 kind does not look likely at all, because so much has changed, and people are now aware of the problem."There are undoubtedly many compelling arguments as to why the U.S. military should exit Syria. But coordinating this withdrawal with local actors will be key if ISIS is to be denied the chance to exploit chaos, which the group has historically done very effectively.

Tom Gillespie and Seth Schindler argue that infrastructure megaprojects in Kenya and Ghana have driven rapid urbanisation processes in historically rural areas. Drawing on the concept of rentier capitalism, they show how infrastructure initiatives created opportunities for the appropriation of rents by various actors, from global real estate developers to local land speculators. If policy initiatives to socialise and redistribute land rents are to be successful, Gillespie and Schindler conclude, they must be accompanied by political movements to challenge the vested interests that benefit from rentier capitalism in Africa.
The post Rentier capitalism and urban geography in Africa first appeared on ROAPE.
The post Rentier capitalism and urban geography in Africa appeared first on ROAPE.

The military coup in Gabon this summer marked the eighth such revolt in Africa since 2020, a shocking number that is raising questions about the role and impact of US military training in these countries.While each coup has many local dynamics and political actors, a Responsible Statecraft article by Nick Turse found that since 2008, at least 15 U.S.-trained officers have been involved in coups in West Africa and the Sahel.Evidence suggests that Washington's counter-terrorism, military first, strategy in West Africa and the Sahel is actually weakening African states and failing to serve African or American interests on the continent. Isn't it time for a serious reassessment of U.S. military assistance in Africa and a change in policy that shows civilians that the U.S. can make their lives better?(Video production by Khody Akhavi)

The regional reverberations of the Israel-Gaza war demonstrate why the White House should scrap, not reinforce, America's outdated and unnecessarily provocative troop presence in Syria and Iraq.
President Joe Biden should redeploy these forces to a safer position offshore and leave it to self-interested Syrians and Iraqis to prevent ISIS from reemerging. As Biden's own policy on Afghanistan demonstrated — and as I observed on the ground earlier this fall — withdrawing U.S. soldiers and Marines can bolster American security by turning the fight against Islamic State over to well-motivated local belligerents while freeing up U.S. personnel to serve in more vital areas.
Likewise, pivoting out of Syria and Iraq will not make Americans any less safe, but it will deny local militias, and their presumptive patrons in Iran, the chance to use unneeded outposts for leverage over our national strategy.
Since October 17, some 900 U.S. troops in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq have been taking fire from Iran-linked militias and, subsequently, drawing retaliatory air support, including an attack by a C-130 gunship that killed eight members of the Kataib Hezbollah group in Iraq last week. The U.S. service members are the lingering footprint of Operation Inherent Resolve, which began in 2015 to defeat the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and succeeded in 2019 in eliminating the physical ISIS caliphate, thereby reducing ISIS to "a survival posture" without territory. Rather than taking the win and packing up, the Trump and Biden administrations kept in place some troops, who have become a recurring target of opportunity for Iran and its surrogates during moments of tension. In the past five weeks, the Iran-linked militants' rockets and one-way attack drones have injured over sixty of these Americans.
The prolonged American deployment, driven by policy inertia more than strategic necessity, has added tinder to a potential U.S.-Iranian conflagration that would eclipse the Israel-Gaza War. One Pentagon official has remarked in defiance, "Iran's objective… has been to force a withdrawal of the U.S. military from the region… What I would observe is that we're still there [in Iraq and Syria]."
This reluctance to relinquish former ISIS territory to independently-minded governments recapitulates the mindset that made the Afghanistan and Iraq wars so unnecessarily costly. Rather than cutting its losses, the White House and Pentagon have doubled down, with two aircraft carrier groups in the Eastern Mediterranean, an airstrike on an Iran-linked weapons depot in Syria, and an additional 1,200 troops for staffing regional air defenses, and now strikes inside Iraq — over the objections of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, whose coalition is linked to Kataib Hezbollah.
When it comes to escalating or winding down U.S. military interventions, the deciding factor should not be what Iran's leaders want in largely deserted corners of Iraq and Syria, but what policies best serve American interests. On this question, Biden's controversial decision in 2021 to pull all U.S. forces from Afghanistan offers an important lesson. As I have seen firsthand, complete withdrawal can serve Washington's counterterrorism and strategic goals, even if the policy cedes physical terrain to governments with which U.S. officials do not see eye to eye.
When the Israel-Gaza war broke out the weekend of October 7, I was wrapping up an uneventful three weeks of visiting what were once the deadliest zones of America's recent wars: Kabul, Kandahar, and Helmand provinces in Afghanistan; and the cities of Baghdad, Fallujah, Ramadi, and Mosul in Iraq. I traversed dozens of Taliban and Iraqi government checkpoints, as I toured cities and rural areas without any sense of threat from officials or terrorists. The physical security I experienced in both countries dispels the most common fear about withdrawing American troops, that exiting will increase the danger to Americans and our interests while strategically advantaging recalcitrant governments.
It is difficult to overstate the level of internal stability Afghanistan has enjoyed since August 2021. In the wake of America's flawed evacuation from Kabul airport, analysts and policymakers expected the country to implode and spread armed conflict onto its neighbors and the world. Instead, political violence in Afghanistan plummeted by 80% in the first year after American forces left. Crucially, the Taliban's security forces curbed the threat of mass-casualty attacks by Islamic State's local offshoot, accomplishing in a matter of months what the Pentagon and CIA had been trying to achieve since 2015. While yes they are under the thumb of the oppressive Taliban regime, Afghans are experiencing their longest respite from war since the Soviet Army invaded on Christmas Eve 1979.
Meanwhile, U.S. forces that would be committed to high-risk, low-reward combat missions in land-locked Afghanistan are available for "deterring and responding to great-power aggression." If the Taliban can hobble Islamic State's operations in an impoverished agrarian country with a supposedly "weak and failing state" ripe for transnational jihadism, there is every reason to expect the armed forces of Syria and Iraq can be equally effective. The Syrian military, backed not only by Iran but also Russia, has the wherewithal and materiel to deal with the dead-enders of ISIS's defunct caliphate. Next door, last year's spike in oil prices allowed Baghdad to adopt the largest budget in its history, including $23 billion for the security sector. Further, I can report that the roadways of Iraq are festooned with billboards of the "martyred" Iranian special forces commander Qasem Soleimani. His ubiquitous visage, in addition to al-Sudani's high-profile visit to Tehran after Secretary of State Blinken's furtive November 5 drop-in, puts paid to the idea that American boots on the ground can "check Iranian influence" in Iraq or other Shia-led states such as Syria.
ISIS has long since been defeated and Operation Inherent Resolve should be shuttered at the first opportunity. The August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan offers a vivid — if unexpected — precedent for making this timely and prudent shift. This further demonstrates that letting local actors handle Islamic State fighters — and whatever lands those jihadists claimed — will not empower America's challengers, but can enable a nimbler U.S. foreign policy.

U.S. forces launched a third strike against Iran-linked groups on Sunday, the latest in an increasingly destructive series of exchanges that have cast a new light on the continued U.S. troop presence in the Middle East. American aircraft struck a weapons storage facility and command-and-control center used by Iran-backed groups in Syria, according to officials. "Within the last two hours, the U.S. has taken precision defensive strikes against two sites in Syria," an official told ABC News. The two structures were located near the eastern Syrian cities of Mayadin and Abu Kamal, according to statements issued on Sunday by the Department of Defense and U.S. Central Command (CENTOM). "The President has no higher priority than the safety of U.S. personnel, and he directed today's action to make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests," Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement. Up to seven "Iranian proxy fighters" were killed at one of the two locations struck by U.S. warplanes, according to Jennifer Griffin, chief national security correspondent for Fox News, citing a senior defense official. This is the third such strike since October 26, reflecting a continued effort by the U.S. to retaliate against Iran-linked groups that the White House says are responsible for a spate of ongoing rocket and drone attacks against U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. sent forces including two carrier strike groups headlined by the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, squadrons consisting of F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft and A-10 close-air-support (CAS), and the USS Bataan Amphibious Ready Group to the region following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and subsequent outbreak of war in Gaza. High-ranking officers including a Marine three-star general were reportedly sent to help advise Israeli leadership as it proceeds with its campaign and another 2,000 U.S. personnel were ordered to prepare to deploy last month. Iranian leaders have unsurprisingly taken a strong policy stance in favor of Hamas, though the full extent of their foreknowledge of and support for the October 7 attack remains unclear. Reports citing U.S. intelligence findings suggest that senior Iranian officials were surprised by the attack, undermining or at least heavily complicating claims of direct Iranian involvement. Nevertheless, Tehran has been accused of mobilizing its robust network of regional proxies to launch scores of attacks against American personnel and infrastructure. U.S. assets have been attacked at least 52 times by Iran-linked groups since October 17, according to officials. A total of fifty-six service members have been injured according to numbers provided by the Pentagon, with over two dozen suffering traumatic brain injuries. Washington has responded to these attacks with a mix of warnings by top officials, which have gone wholly unheeded, and retaliatory strikes. The Sunday strikes came shortly on the heels of airstrikes conducted by two F-15 fighter jets against Iran-linked facilities in Syria earlier last week. These two latest rounds of U.S. strikes come just two weeks after a similar spate of operations targeting facilities in eastern Syria that officials say were "used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups." The strikes on October 26, which the Pentagon said were not related to "the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas," were partly intended to deter Iran from coordinating further attacks on U.S. personnel. Yet attacks on American troops have not only continued but intensified in recent weeks, with Iran-backed militants reportedly assaulting U.S. bases with drones carrying even larger payloads.Growing risks to American service members and concerns that these continued exchanges could trigger a direct military confrontation between the U.S. and Iran have spurred new perspectives on the costs and benefits of the continued military presence in the Middle East. The 2,500 and 900 troops in Iraq and Syria, respectively, are ostensibly there to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State, but the rationale behind this presence has come under scrutiny. "If a U.S. ground presence in Iraq and Syria were absolutely necessary to achieve a core U.S. security interest, then perhaps these risks would be tolerable. But this is hardly the case," Defense Priorities (DEFP) fellow Daniel DePetris wrote in a release on November 9. "ISIS lost its territorial caliphate more than four years ago and is now relegated to a low-grade, rural insurgency that local actors can contain. The U.S. military presence is not only unnecessary, but also a dangerous tripwire for a wider war." The continued deployments put service members at constant risk, especially in the context of heightened regional tensions stemming from the Israel-Hamas war, and serve neither clear nor achievable policy aims, argued Justin Logan, the Cato Institute's director of defense and foreign policy studies."Attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria will no doubt continue—the solution is to remove U.S. forces which remain as targets only because they're within range of these local militias," said a DEFP explainer published earlier this month, suggesting that U.S. troops in stationed within striking distance of local militants be redeployed to better-defended positions in the Middle-East. American troops have reportedly been attacked a staggering four times within less than a day of Sunday's airstrike, sending the clearest signal yet that retaliatory strikes have not had their intended deterring effect. As the Gaza crisis roils on, the dangers confronting U.S. troops — and, with them, calls to reconsider the tools and goals of American power projection in the Middle East—will likely intensify.

UPDATE 12/8, 12:45 p.m.: The motion to discharge Paul's resolution, which moved to remove U.S. troops stationed in Syria, failed today in the Senate by a vote of 13-84.Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul's office says he will force a vote in the coming weeks on a bill he introduced this month that could remove all U.S. troops — approximately 900 — from Syria. Sources say a vote could come as early as next week."The American people have had enough of endless wars in the Middle East. Yet, 900 U.S. troops remain in Syria with no vital U.S. interest at stake, no definition of victory, no exit strategy, and no congressional authorization to be there," Paul said in a statement provided to RS. "If we are going to deploy our young men and women in uniform to Syria to fight and potentially give their life for some supposed cause, shouldn't we as their elected representatives at least debate the merits of sending them there? Shouldn't we do our constitutional duty and debate if the mission we are sending them on is achievable?"American forces have been targeted in recent years with rockets and drones by Shia militants who the Pentagon says are directly supported by Iran. Those attacks have increased over the last month and a half after the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion and hostage-taking in Israel. According to the Department of Defense, there have been 66 attacks on U.S. troops in Syria and Iraq since Oct. 17 , with 34 of them in Syria. At least 62 Americans have been injured in both countries. The Biden administration has authorized limited strikes against targets in both Syria and Iraq, one on Oct. 26 and the other on Nov. 21, in retaliation for those attacks.Paul's resolution, introduced on Nov. 15, invokes the War Powers Resolution which says the Biden administration is required to remove the U.S. military from hostilities without a declaration of war from Congress. This resolution would remove the troops within 30 days of passage unless the president asks for and receives an authorization for war from the Congress.Critics like Paul say the Syria operation is not covered by the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMFs). Nevertheless, the U.S. military has been engaged in kinetic warfare with a number of state and non-state actors there since Obama deployed troops during the Syrian civil war in 2015. Now, the forces remain in harm's way without a clear mission and a war not far from the border in Gaza. From my colleague Adam Weinstein:The potential for one-upmanship between various Shi'a militias, each trying to prove they're more hostile toward Americans than the others, is a concerning possibility. A deadly attack on U.S. troops could prompt the Biden administration to respond more forcefully, especially in an election year. What is the administration's plan to manage escalation and prevent a larger regional war (with heavy U.S. involvement) if this were to occur?He recommends phasing out the troop presence in the region. As does University of Texas professor Jason Brownlee, who wrote in these pages just this week. He says the oft-used justification that the troops are there to deter and thwart ISIS no longer cuts it:ISIS has long since been defeated and Operation Inherent Resolve should be shuttered at the first opportunity. The August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan offers a vivid — if unexpected — precedent for making this timely and prudent shift. This further demonstrates that letting local actors handle Islamic State fighters — and whatever lands those jihadists claimed — will not empower America's challengers, but can enable a nimbler U.S. foreign policy.Paul has long fought against this continued deployment, and this isn't the first effort at withdrawal. In the House, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) tried and failed in March this year by a vote of 321-103 to do the same. This is not just a Republican issue. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D.N.Y) has introduced bills and/or amendments in 2021, 2022 and 2023 that garnered bipartisan support, but ultimately failed.It is not clear whether the increased tensions and attacks due to the Gaza war will make it harder to make the case for removing the troops, or easier. The Biden administration has been building up U.S. military assets in the region for deterrence, though there are critics who say that makes the tensions worse. Dan Caldwell, vice president of the Center for Renewing America and a U.S. Army veteran, called the situation a "national disgrace" in a recent American Conservative article."Policy inertia and political cowardice have condemned American service members in Iraq and Syria to serve as soft targets for those looking to punish the U.S. and as trip wires for a larger regional war," he said. "By withdrawing from Iraq and Syria, the U.S. would no longer have to worry about retaliation against vulnerable U.S. troops due to its support of Israel in its war against Hamas."Dear RS readers: It has been an extraordinary year and our editing team has been working overtime to make sure that we are covering the current conflicts with quality, fresh analysis that doesn't cleave to the mainstream orthodoxy or take official Washington and the commentariat at face value. Our staff reporters, experts, and outside writers offer top-notch, independent work, daily. Please consider making a tax-exempt, year-end contribution to Responsible Statecraft so that we can continue this quality coverage — which you will find nowhere else — into 2024. Happy Holidays!

Last month, CEGA held its ninth annual Measuring Development (MeasureDev) conference on "Mitigating the Risks and Impacts of Climate Change," in partnership with the World Bank's Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) Department, Data Analytics and Tools Unit (DECAT), and the University of Chicago's Development Innovation Lab (DIL). Speakers showcased innovative approaches for measuring and tracking climate-related risk, developing effective responses, and evaluating outcomes in data-sparse environments. Sean Luna McAdams, CEGA's Data Science for Development Program Manager, shares key insights from the event here.Climate change is disrupting weather patterns around the world. Look no further than the unhealthy levels of smoke in the Northeast's skies last week. The impacts on human activity require urgent investments in mitigation and resilience for those most vulnerable. Last month, CEGA, DIL, and the World Bank brought together some of the most innovative social and natural scientists working on this existential challenge to share how they are pushing the frontiers of data collection, for example by using remote sensing technologies, engaging in participatory data collection, and effectively (and meaningfully) integrating different data streams.University of Chicago's Rachel Glennester emphasized the importance of measurement to help diagnose, mitigate, and adapt to climate change, particularly to incentivize green investments in LMICs. Credit: World Bank.A Call for Better Measurement"Mitigation is one of the true global public goods," noted the University of Chicago's Rachel Glennester in her keynote address. Indeed, the efforts by one country or group of countries to reduce carbon emissions will have benefits that are felt worldwide. Recognizing that low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) — who have historically contributed little to climate change — nevertheless face growing opportunities to mitigate emissions for the whole planet, Rachel suggested high-income countries could fund highly costeffective mitigation efforts in LMICs. These payments should not be considered aid as they benefit the world and offset high income countries' damage to the atmosphere. To do this effectively we need scalable approaches to measuring emissions, among many other critical indicators.Cost-Effective Measurement with Remote SensingMany speakers addressed the challenge of cost-effective measurement through the use of remote sensing. CEGA Affiliate Tamma Carleton highlighted the promise of satellite imagery and machine learning (SIML) to improve climate management. Her own work on MOSAIKS demonstrates the potential for these data and predictive models to increase the spatial coverage and resolution of survey and administrative georeferenced data, while lowering barriers to access for decision-makers in low-resource settings. Similarly, Dieter Wang showcased how higher resolution and frequency satellite imagery alongside cloud-penetrating sensors can improve estimates of how well conservation policies in the Brazilian Amazon are preventing deforestation. Better measurement in this case makes it possible to reward governments through bonds whose rates are tied to mitigation performance. Kangogo Sogomo discussed a novel approach that leverages satellite imagery to predict maize yields at a finer scale with less computational resources.Since 2010, new satellites have come online that increase both sensor resolution and cloud-free revisit rate. These advances provide researchers with more granular and frequent imagery data to incorporate into their analyses. Credit: Burke et al, Science 2021.Of course, remote sensing is not just limited to satellites and can inform adaptation and resilience alongside mitigation. Samuel Seo, for example, compared measurement strategies for methane emissions from a large, unmanaged landfill in Dakar, Senegal by collecting data using human enumerators, drones, and satellites. Across the board, these measurements suggest that current approaches used by the IPCC underestimate total emissions from these sites by more than half. Bridget Hoffman instead used low-cost air pollution sensors along bus routes and within buses in Dakar to understand the effects of an infrastructure project on air quality. Drones, stationary sensors, and other instruments can all provide rich data at scale to improve the evaluation and monitoring of climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.The Role of Participatory Data CollectionResearchers and climate practitioners not only think creatively about the sensors they use to collect data, they also innovate data collection and its infrastructure to make it more participatory. Kangogo Sogomo noted increasing mobile phone use and internet penetration across the global South suggesting, "climate action is urgent… there is still an opportunity for having participatory methods [for data collection]." Tom Bewick, for example, has trained indigenous communities in Africa and Latin America how to collect georeferenced data on planted trees to improve the monitoring of their growth and local collective governance. Similarly, Kenneth Mubea, who works to conserve mangrove forests, discussed how his research assembled teams of students to work with local communities to collect georeferenced data. Participatory approaches can extend to model validation, as with the case of Alejandra Mortarini. She worked with organizations that have long-standing relationships with communities living in informal settlements in Honduras to help validate the outputs of the predictive model and calibrate it to improve its performance. By incorporating local actors into data collection efforts, we can increase its frequency, provide greater access, and contribute to a local culture of evidence-use.New Approaches to Data IntegrationA third strategy to make data collection cheaper and more effective relies on exploiting efficiencies generated by integrating different data streams. The World Bank's Stéphane Hallegatte stressed the opportunity of integrating different data sources in his remarks."We have all this fantastic progress in measurement with remote sensing and big data, we have these household surveys that are playing an absolutely critical role to measure what we are doing and to prioritize," said Hallegatte. "One of the big challenges is to make them completely interlinked and to flow smoothly from the spatial to household surveys, and have household surveys that can be more flexible when there is a shock that can use data coming from satellites to maybe focus and do dedicated surveys in places that have been affected by a shock."In particular, Hallegatte stressed that traditional measures of vulnerability may lead us to miss some individuals who may be critically underprepared to face the "long tails" of climate shocks. Adaptive research designs can help us understand which interventions work best in particular contexts and communities, improving our understanding of how climate systems affect those who are socioeconomically and environmentally most vulnerable and how we may build resilience together.Hallegatte stressed how different metrics of climate vulnerability can lead policy makers to prioritize different areas. Here we see how four different risk indicators — annual asset risk, annual consumption poverty increase, socioeconomic resilience, and annual well-being risk — map onto the Philippines. Source: Hallegatte 2023.Paola Agostini, Mohammed Basheer, and Erwin Knippenberg simulated physical and social systems in their research designs. These simulations enabled each of them to estimate new quantities of interest, like the decision-space of negotiations for potential dam designs in the Nile River Basin, the cost-per-benefit of different land restoration interventions in Tajikistan, or the percentage of the population at risk of falling into poverty due to weather shocks in Afghanistan. Ben Brunckhorst showed how the incorporation of weather predictions unlocks the possibility of anticipatory cash transfers with demonstrable effects on household resilience to flooding in Bangladesh.Through better measurement we can improve our collective efforts to meet the challenge of climate change. As Hallegatte reminded us in his keynote remarks, how we construct these measures of impact fundamentally affects what regions, communities, and interventions we prioritize. A critical part of this effort will be to leverage measurement strategies highlighted during MeasureDev 2023 to channel resources to the places and communities where interventions to mitigate and adapt to climate change will have the greatest impact. In so doing, measurement can contribute to a more equitable future by incentivizing green investments in LMICs.How does Measurement Contribute to a Habitable Planet for All? was originally published in CEGA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

COST Action IS1003: 'International Law between Constitutionalisation and Fragmentation',Working Group 1: Territoriality

 

Organizing Fragmented Territoriality

Call for papers:
Working Group meeting & Workshop
November 15-17, 2012, Hamburg (Germany)

Recently, scholars from various fields in legal studies and the social sciences have begun to re-think implied dichotomies (like national/global, public/private, etc.). Facing criticisms like "methodological nationalism" (Beck) or the "territorial trap" (Agnew), the workshop aims to invite perspectives that take issue with the established nexus of state sovereignty and territo-riality and to re-visit territoriality as a phenomenon organized in a variety of sites and by a variety of actors. Although obviously touching upon related social phenomena, scholars from different disciplines (like international law, international relations, sociology, geography, an-thropology, or history) have rarely linked up research agendas, so far. A major aim of the workshop is to prompt trans-disciplinary engagement.

Debates on globalization, even when focussing on international law confronted by constitu-tionalization and fragmentation, have often continued to conceive of territorial state sover-eignty and dynamics of globalization as a zero-sum game. But is this still appropriate: Do states (still) monopolize territoriality? And if they do not, who else does it, and how?

While liberal approaches to international law have made remarkable steps in facing the social complexities of globalized governance by pointing to the increasingly "disaggregated" character of (democratic) nation-state sovereignty (Slaughter), other scholars have pointed out that the implied networked forms of governance through sub-state entities -- like execu-tive agencies or courts -- are not mere functions of a de-territorialized state. Instead of just reacting to "post-modern" security threats or so-called economic necessities, state agencies rather find themselves involved in a substantive "politics of sovereignty".

 These politics of sovereignty are not about choosing more or less state, state regulation or de-regulation, or public or private authority. Rather, diverse and, in part, disaggregated state agencies alongside various other actors establish new modes of governing, including the governing of "former" state territoriality. Although no longer alone in the projection of authority, "the state" itself is taking a decisive part in the reorganization of its own territoriality (Sassen). While, no doubt, states have their stakes in the organization of territoriality, they can be expected (and observed!) practicing governance in newly established sites ranging, as has been detailed in different research contexts, from now well-established forms of international governance in the context of International Governmental Organizations (IGOs) to "local" but nevertheless border-crossing arrangements of public-private partnerships. Furthermore, the governance of territory is in danger of slipping out of the states' hands when IGOs establish increasingly autonomous bureaucracies that tend to emancipate themselves from the mem-ber states consent, or when governance capacities of the state are effectively challenged by private actors emerging on the scene. These different processes – conceivable as different communications constituting a "world society" (Stichweh) – profoundly change the idea of territoriality itself.

Their result might be a fragmented (legal and political) order of territoriality. New and multiple forms of regulation, however, can hardly be seen as consequences of fragmentation. Instead, the politics of sovereignty and fragmented territoriality are inextricably linked and dependent on each other. It is but the constitution of territoriality that -- in a paradoxical move -- brings about its fragmented normativity. This new multiplicity of governance raises questions for the reproduction of global normativity:

- How is territoriality (re-) constructed or challenged in different arenas (political system, legal system, and beyond)?
- How can the category of territoriality be conceived in terms of governance instead of government? What is the nexus between territoriality and governance?
- How do legal phenomena like the legalization of world politics and/or constitutional quality beyond the state emerge? What are the processes that advance/impede le-galization or constitutionalization?
- Which actors are involved? How are they related? And how is their social status de-termined and reproduced?
- How are the dividing lines between public and private established? What separates and what links up these spheres?
- How are the boundaries between law and politics drawn and how does this relate to territory?

Contributions to the workshop could touch upon themes and perspectives including
the historicization of territoriality, international law and politics; state and/or non-state politics of sovereignty; the methodology of overcoming territorial traps; Global Administrative Law (GAL); Governmentality perspectives; Legal Pluralism; Sociology of Law; (Global) Governance.

 Please send paper proposals (max. 300 words) to Philip Liste and Katja Freistein (philip.liste@wiso.uni-hamburg.de; katja.freistein@uni-bielefeld.de) by July 1st, 2012.

Participants from countries participating in COST Action 1003 can apply for funding for this workshop. As a rule, COST reimburses a flat rate of €120,- per night for accommodation and travel costs for two participants per participating country. For more information on COST Action 1003, please check the website: http://www.il-cf.eu If you would like to receive COST funding, please attach a short request (max 150 words) to your paper proposal.

Organization:
Dr. Philip Liste, University of Hamburg, Faculty for Economics and Social Sciences, Allende-Platz 1, 20146 Hamburg
Email: philip.liste@wiso.uni-hamburg.de
Dr. Katja Freistein, Bielefeld University, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB 882), Universitaetsstr.25, 33615 Bielefeld
Email: katja.freistein@uni-bielefeld.de

A stroke of good luck for Louisiana taxpayers, the strike
by writers and actors of motion picture and television productions can be
leveraged even more for the state's citizens to avoid the bad consequences of
its poorly-conceived Motion Picture Investors Tax Credit.

First writers, then actors began the strike
starting over three months ago. This brought largely to a halt an already
slowing production of movies and series, whether shown in theaters, on broadcast
television, cable television, streaming over the Internet, or in podcast form,
although some films in progress actor members have been allowed to complete. Anticipation
of a strike as early as late last year had prompted ratcheting down production,
so as not to have things interrupted if a strike occurred. To work with a network
or major studio (which comprise most of the business; for example, the top ten
studios in movie box office receipts for last
year collected seven-eighths of all revenues), writers and actors must be a
member of their respective unions.

The main issue in both cases is revenue-sharing. The
rapid growth in streaming particularly has exposed that prior compensation
models didn't account for this, leading members to demand a greater share of
the pie from that. Both also want more control over the use of artificial intelligence
in story writing and actor likenesses. Writers additionally want retainer pay
for stretches that they don't work.

These fall under a much larger theme: an industry
used to centralization of economic control through cooperation of management
and labor has lost that control because, simply, the economics have changed so
that far more people at far reduced costs can create profitably content. Old
producers and unions have come to loggerheads because the decentralization trend
has more forcefully affected the fortunes of the latter.

But the unions involved – both extremely top heavy
with the vast majority of earnings going to a handful of members in each – also
by their actions have impacted other people who work in the industry and in
much greater numbers. Audio-visual content production requires a slew of
behind-the-scenes labor, almost exclusively contract in nature. Shutting down
production also shuts down at least part of the livelihood of many individuals,
as most work part-time, but for some its entirety.

That
has hit Louisiana disproportionately hard, given its generous taxpayer
subsidization of film and television production to the tune typically of $150
million annually which artificially has boosted this activity and created a kind
of workfare for people who want to work around the movie business. Nobody
should kid themselves that in absence of the credit that business would be no
more than a fraction of what it is, or that the credit is a net money-maker for
taxpayers, as study after study has shown (the latest,
most optimistic shows it returns 23 cents on the dollar while costing $13,300
for each job "created").

Thus, the slowdown will help Louisianans save
money, as fewer productions will occur and fewer credits dispensed. But the overall
theme that triggered the strike now has a chance to insert itself into policy-makers'
consciousness, which it apparently didn't this past legislative session when with
only some beneficial changes the tax credit foolishly was renewed.

And, the idea
to accomplish this reform to keep up with the times actually came years ago
from Republican Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser,
running for reelection this fall. He suggested that part of any contract with
an entity qualifying for the credits contain a clause that, if the production
made a certain amount in revenues, the state take a cut.

This can be designed to capture streaming revenues,
and in a way to help local producers; the overwhelming majority of credit
dollars go to out-of-state entities. The law could be changed to charge gross
revenues to the parent corporation or other entity in a tiered system. For
example, there would be no tax reimbursement for a production that in a decade
after release doesn't collect $1 million, but then from there to $10 million one
percent is charged, two percent up to $20 million, and so on every $10 million
until reaching $100 million and beyond where it becomes a fixed 10 percent.
This shields smaller producers such as those in-state as an incentive to grow,
ensures that creative accounting doesn't hide revenues, and reasonably accounts
for present and future streaming.

As currently constructed, the film tax credit is nothing
more than a jobs program for a favored political constituency that wastes
taxpayer dollars and distorts the economy into a preferred direction picked by
government. Ironically, people in the spillover industries that have benefited
from this now suffer precisely because of it and its vulnerability to what
happens in Hollywood. Had the reimbursement idea been in place, it would have been
less buffeted by Hollywood developments because it would have helped stimulate
an indigenous film industry outside of the current labor dispute. The new
Legislature next year needs to make this modification.

The Biden administration continues to deny any connections between the war in Gaza and the ongoing conflicts involving U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. The White House's position that these are all unrelated conflicts that are just cropping up at the same time can't be squared with the evidence showing that the war in Gaza has fueled regional instability and violence, including the recent drone attack by an Iraqi militia that killed three American service members and injured more than 40 at a base in Jordan earlier this week.As much as the administration might want to keep the conflict confined to Gaza, the truth is that it has spread to several other countries. It is a disservice to the American people and to American military personnel to pretend that U.S. support for the war in Gaza hasn't already had serious negative consequences for regional stability and for American forces in the region when it clearly has.When he was asked about this "same, larger conflict" at a press conference on Wednesday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby dismissed any link between Gaza and the U.S. fight with the Houthis or the back-and-forth strikes between local militias and U.S. forces."I absolutely don't agree with your description of the same, larger conflict. There's a conflict going on between Israel and Hamas…and we're going to make sure that we continue to get Israel the support that they need to defend themselves against this still viable threat," Kirby said. "There were attacks on our troops and facilities in Iraq and Syria well before the seventh of October, certainly in the last administration as well. As for the Houthis, they can claim all they want that this is linked to Gaza, but two-thirds of the ships that they're hitting have no connection to Israel whatsoever. So it's just not true, it's a falsehood."Kirby's answer is misleading and false. The umbrella group in Iraq that claimed responsibility for the attack in Jordan, the Islamic Resistance of Iraq, explicitly stated that its attack was connected to the war in Gaza. The Houthi leadership has been emphatic that their attacks will continue for as long as the war does. The decision of other actors to jump on a cause's bandwagon may be cynical or not, but there is no denying that they have jumped on the bandwagon.Refusing to face the reality of the connections between these conflicts guarantees that the U.S. will pursue ineffective and counterproductive policies by ignoring that the key to defusing regional tensions is to bring the war in Gaza to an end as quickly as possible.Kirby did not mention that militia attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria had ceased for several months prior to October 7 because of the understanding that the U.S. and Iran had reached in connection with the prisoner exchange deal. It was only after October 7 that those attacks resumed and then increased to record levels. Local militias have additional reasons of their own for targeting U.S. forces that predate the war, but there is no way to understand the intensity of the attacks in recent months or their cessation during the pause in fighting in Gaza last year without recognizing that they are linked to Israel's war.The same goes for the Houthi attacks. The Houthis did not launch a campaign against commercial shipping during their war with the Saudi coalition, so this is not something that they have usually done since seizing power in 2014. The first Houthi attacks after October 7 were aimed at Israel itself. The Houthis shifted tactics to targeting commercial vessels, but it was clear that they were doing so in response to the war. No doubt the Houthis are acting opportunistically and are launching these attacks partly to bolster their own political fortunes in Yemen, but that doesn't change the reality that these attacks are happening now because of the war in Gaza. If that's true, it also seems reasonable to conclude that the attacks against shipping could be ended with a ceasefire there as well.The Biden administration has strong political incentives to deny links between these different conflicts. If they acknowledge a link, that makes it harder for them to justify their unconditional backing for Israel's war because of the greater costs involved. It also undermines their argument for military action in Yemen against the Houthis. The White House needs Americans to think that the costs of continued support for the war are lower than they are, and they also need Americans to buy that the strikes on Yemen aren't related to their stubborn opposition to a ceasefire in Gaza. Now that there are American fatalities from an Iraqi militia attack, the administration wants to compartmentalize each conflict so that the American people won't conclude that U.S. soldiers are being killed because of a foreign war that the president chose to support without conditions.The administration insists that it wants to prevent a regional war, but that won't be successful if it fails to recognize the relationships between Israel's campaign and what is happening elsewhere in the Middle East. Denying the link with Gaza in Yemen has already led to the blunder of escalation against the Houthis. That has done nothing to make commercial shipping more secure, but it has drawn the U.S. into another unnecessary, open-ended fight. The president is on the verge of making a similar mistake in response to the drone attack in Jordan.The U.S. can choose to entangle itself ever deeper in Middle Eastern conflicts as it is doing now, or it can recognize the futility and folly of going down the same dead-end road it has traveled before. If Washington wants to avoid involvement in new conflicts, it must reject the path of escalation and it must stop fueling the war in Gaza that is one of the chief drivers of regional instability.In the longer term, the U.S. needs to reduce its military footprint in the region to make it harder for other actors to hit American forces, and it needs to reassess and significantly cut back on its client relationships. The public deserves an honest accounting of what our government is doing in the Middle East and why, and right now the White House isn't providing anything close to that. If the president won't change course, the very least that he can do is level with the American people about the full costs of continuing down the dangerous path that he has chosen.

The Iraqi army captain who assassinated King Faisal II and his family in 1958 claimed, "All I did was remember Palestine, and the trigger on the machine-gun just set itself off." Although Iraqi historians refute this assertion and maintain the officer was a delusional madman, in the days leading up to the massacre of the royal family, the Iraqi opposition had been emboldened by growing anti-Israel sentiment and a perception that the Iraqi monarchy leaned too heavily toward Western nations which enabled Israeli aggression toward Arab states. Six decades later, the Palestinian question still enrages the "Arab Street." The war in Gaza raises concerns of violent regional spillover and Iraq would not be not immune from the consequences. Unlike the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, however, it is unlikely that armed conflict will come to Iraq as sympathy for the Palestinians will not trump war fatigue. Yet, there are reasons to fear the indirect costs of war. Chief among those concerns revolve around neighboring Iran being involved in a wider conflict, but no less significant could be the effects on the internal politics of Iraq, its economy, and its international relations. Much will depend on the skills of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani to balance the pressure from his political opponents and the armed militias.Internal politicsAll politics are local, and in Iraq they are often armed. Unlike the dictatorships, dynasties, and monarchies surrounding it, Iraq remains a parliamentary democracy, generally responsive to public sentiment but also coercion from armed militias outside of government control.Iraq's recent history shows the best and worst of democracy, free speech, and the right to assemble. In October 2019, widespread street protests over corruption, unemployment, inadequate services, and poor living conditions brought down the government of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi. The Tishreen ("October") protesters demanded the resignation of Abdul-Mahdi, commitments to reform, and early elections. While authorities responded with a relatively heavy hand, the government fell within two months. Abdul-Mahdi's replacement, Mustafa al Kadhimi, enjoyed a full term in office but the process of replacing him with the current prime minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani came after Iraq went through the longest period without a formal government in its modern history. Among other factors, his appointment was fiercely opposed by the powerful rabble-rousing Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr when Sadr was unable to form a government. Sadr's party resigned en masse from Parliament but not before his followers stormed the Council of Representatives in July 2022 twice, and occupied the Presidential Palace the following month. The departure of the Sadrists from the palace led to a deadly firefight in the Green Zone which soon spread to Iraq's southern provinces. Against this backdrop of violence and turmoil, the Sudani government came to power in October 2022 fully understanding the need to remain sensitive to public opinion and well armed political opponents. The Sudani government also remains under pressure from militias, a delicate balancing act for a country beholden to the accomplishments of these groups in the fight against Daesh, or ISIS. These militias enjoy quasi-political influence on the Iraqi body politic and are closely tied to Iran. Sudani's political opponents have been closely watching for a misstep (common to all opposition parties worldwide), not least Sadr, who has already called on his supporters to join "peaceful" demonstrations in protest of Israel's war on Gaza. Rarely are Sadrist demonstrations peaceful as shown by the sit-ins in 2021 and the violent attacks into the protected Green Zone in 2022.Against this backdrop, Sudani maintains a careful reading of internal politics. While he may not be ousted by demonstrations like Abdul-Mahdi or fend off assassination attempts as did Khadimi, participating in internal politics remains a risky business in Iraq; so is international diplomacy.External relations While Prime Minister Sudani has demonstrated strong skills in managing Iraq's internal politics, external relations with Iran and the United States could provide the missteps his opponents seek. Despite strong condemnation of the attacks into Gaza, Iran-backed militias have significantly ramped up their drone and rocket attacks on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Syria.In response, a parade of U.S. officials from CIA Director William Burns to Secretary of State Antony Blinken (adorned in body armor) have visited Iraq since October 7 persuading, cajoling, and warning Sudani of the consequences of continued attacks on U.S. personnel. Sudani issued stern warnings that Iraqi territory should not be used as a proxy battlefield, and that continued attacks by these groups may provoke U.S. action against Iran even in the absence of proof that these attacks were "explicitly ordered" by Tehran. Arresting a small number of suspects in the attacks has, for the moment, kept the diplomatic situation somewhat calm. Sudani seems to have found a way to acquiesce to Washington's demands while placating Iran and the militias. Keen on maintaining positive relations with both Iran and the U.S., while remaining attentive and in tune to sentiments on the street, Sudani cannot risk being perceived as cowering to Western pressures at a time when public opinion is overwhelmingly in support of Gaza. But that balancing act will require continued statesmanship to uphold Iraq's sovereignty without being labeled by detractors as a puppet of any hegemon, whether Iran or the U.S. A tipping point, however, may be if the war in Gaza continues. The recent outcry against the December 25 airstrikes by the U.S. military in response to a rocket attack which seriously injured an American soldier is the most recent example. Not only did Sudani call the rocket attack an act of terrorism, but also condemned the American strike as a serious violation of Iraqi sovereignty and announced that "the Iraqi government is heading towards ending the presence of international coalition forces."Economic effectsWhile Iraq's economy has shown some signs of recovery in recent months — 25 percent of Iraqis reportedly live below the poverty line — unemployment is forecasted to reach 40 percent, and climate change has contributed to water scarcity. There is little appetite for yet another war in Iraq when average Iraqis are battling to get by.In the event the Gaza conflict expands, Iraqis could be affected by events such as the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Blocking maritime traffic through the Suez Canal and rerouting traffic around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa could affect the relatively modest inflation rate in Iraq at a time when the Iraqi dinar has also gone through a significant depreciation. While the economic situation in Iraq is far better than regional neighbors such as Iran, Turkey, and Egypt, expectations from consumers used to relatively stable prices are high and even a small amount of economic turbulence on top of anger at the situation in Gaza could challenge the Sudani government. As former Iraqi Energy Minister Luay Al Khateeb puts it, "If the Gaza war engulfs Iran, this will lead to major consequences on Iraq's political and economic stability. The ramifications will force Iran to prioritize its needs to meet local demand on power sector and gas supplies and cut natural gas electricity exports to Iraq."Iraq currently imports electricity and gas from Iran that total close to 40 percent of its power supply. "Iran's force majeure cuts will compromise Iraq's national grid to disable 50 percent of Iraq's service sectors and investment projects, affecting the country's revenue; [it will have a] negative impact on GDP and will most certainly ignite unprecedented populous protests against the government and the political system at large," says Al Khateeb. "For Iraq to avoid such a situation, a quick short term resolution will come at a major cost to compensate for the losses by importing expensive diesel and securing more financial allocation for power generation maintenance that will eventually increase the budget deficit beyond control."Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Dr Ali Allawi concurs."A war certainly would lead to Iranian cutbacks of gas supplied to Iraq," he says, adding, "It would also be used to pressure Iraq to drop its public neutrality between the U.S. and Iran. The Iraqi public is decidedly in favor of Palestine, and the Gaza war has made the Iranian connection less contentious than before."While international actors seek to contain the violence inside of Israel and Gaza, regional actors seem intent on expanding the war well beyond those borders. Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Iran-backed militias seem hell-bent on spreading the flames. The United States blames Iran as the source of regional provocations and even if inaccurate, the U.S. has put its forces on war footing, sending aircraft carriers and increased intelligence and other combat capabilities into the region, ostensibly to deter and contain the conflict — moves that inadvertently increase the dangers.of that very conflagration either by mistake, miscalculation, or misstep. The recent American-led maritime mission, Operation Prosperity Guardian, will increase the number of international warships in the Red Sea and should a Houthi missile sink a commercial tanker or a U.S. warship, the responses and counter-responses may make the war in Gaza seem minor.The Middle East has not seen this level of instability in decades and Iraq is not immune from that instability. Even if, to date, it has not been directly affected by the Gaza war or a wider regional conflict, Iraq it is already feeling its indirect effects through increased tensions between the U.S. and Iran, large scale street protests in support of Palestine, Iranian -backed militias attacking U.S. personnel, domestic political opponents, and impacts on the Iraqi economy. While Prime Minister Sudani has deftly managed those challenges to date, it remains problematic whether he, or Iraq, can weather the storms blowing in from Gaza for much longer.