Podcasts about Iraq Study Group

Michael Doran, senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at Hudson Institute, joins the show to discuss “restraintism” as a factor in Trump's choices in the Middle East. ▪️ Times      •      01:46 Introduction     •      02:20 What is it?      •      05:01 Left, right, center      •      06:56 Syria '07        •      11:47 Iraq Study Group        •      17:21 Populist expression      •      27:34 Balance         •      30:20 Obama v Trump      •      34:56 Oscillation     •      42:16 Back to JCPOA?         •      45:49 Snapback      •      47:44 Syria '25     •      52:09 Iran and Turkey Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find a transcript of today's episode on our School of War Substack

Shibley Telhami, a noted Mideast expert, will speak about recent developments in the region. Telhami is a nonresident senior fellow with the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, and the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. He has also served as a senior advisor to the U.S. Department of State, advisor to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, advisor to Congressman Lee Hamilton, and member of the Iraq Study Group.

Time Schedule:  140 minutesSummary of Topics Covered:Lesson and stories from six decades practicing lawProsecutorial discretionSmall town problem solving for lawyersLearning from MistakesSeizing opportunitiesInstructor Hon. Alan K. Simpson, Esq. BioHon. Alan Simpson served in the U.S. Senate (R-Wyoming) from January 1979 to 1997, where he was the Assistant Republican Leader, 1984-1994; Chairman of the Subcommittee of Immigration and Refugee Policy of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 1980-1984; Nuclear Regulation Subcommittee of Environmental and Public Works, 1980-1984; Chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security and member of the Committee on Aging; Chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, 1980-1984. From 1994-1996, he was a member of the Finance Committee; 1965-1977, Wyoming State Legislature, 1965-1978, Assistant Majority Leader, Majority Leader, and Speaker Pro Tem.Mr. Simpson served as Assistant Attorney General, State of Wyoming in 1959, and was City Attorney of Cody, Wyoming, from 1959-1969. Partner: Simpson & Simpson (with father Milward L. Simpson who also served as Governor and U.S. Senator for Wyoming ); Simpson Kepler & Simpson, 1960-1978. Additionally, Mr. Simpson served in the U.S. Army, 1st Lieutenant, 2nd Armored Division “Hell on the Wheels” and the 5th Division, U.S. Armed Forces, Germany.Alan Simpson is currently with the Washington Speakers Bureau in Washington, D.C. He is a very popular speaker and travels the country and abroad to speak to a wide variety of groups and associations regarding current affairs and politics in remarks entitled “Politics is a Contact Sport”.Mr. Alan Simpson is Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming.Mr. Simpson was a member of the Board of Visitors for the Folger-Shakespeare Library and the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. 1994-1996. From 1998 to 2000 Mr. Simpson was the Director of the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; and he was a Visiting Lecturer at the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy, 1997-2000.Mr. Simpson served on the Board of Trustees of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1996 and he has been a member of the Screen Actor's Guild since 1994. He served on the Board of Directors for the Biogen Corporation (now BiogenIDEC Corporation), Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1997-2004 and he was a member of the Board of Directors of American Express Funds, now RiverSource Funds, a subsidiary of Ameriprise Financial, Minneapolis, Minnesota from 1997 through 2006.In March 2010, Mr. Simpson was appointed by the President as the Co-Chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and he also served on the ten-member Iraq Study Group formed under the auspices of the congressionally chartered U.S. Institute of Peace in 2006.J.D., University of Wyoming, 1958B.S., University of Wyoming, 1954

"The problem today that we didn't have during the Cold War or twenty years ago is that there's profound disagreement over what are the biggest threats to our national security." On the day the United States is scheduled to end its military presence in Afghanistan, two experts on counterterrorism — Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware— join Daniel for a special discussion. On the docket is a deep dive into many issues surrounding the exit. What could the US have done better, or differently? What could happen if ISIS-K and Al Qaeda vie for power in a Taliban-led society? Hoffman makes clear that in his opinion, the US should not be leaving. But what is the alternative? Support Talking Beats with Daniel Lelchuk. Professor Bruce Hoffman has been studying terrorism and insurgency for over four decades. He is a tenured professor in Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service where from 2010 to 2017 he was the Director of both the Center for Security Studies and of the Security Studies Program. In addition, Professor Hoffman is visiting Professor of Terrorism Studies at St Andrews University, Scotland. He previously held the Corporate Chair in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation and was also Director of RAND's Washington, D.C. Office. Professor Hoffman also served as RAND's Vice President for External Affairs and as Acting Director of RAND's Center for Middle East Public Policy. Appointed by the U.S. Congress to serve as a commissioner on the Independent Commission to Review the FBI's Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization, Professor Hoffman was a lead author of the commission's final report. He was Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency between 2004 and 2006; an adviser on counterterrorism to the Office of National Security Affairs, Coalition Provisional Authority, Baghdad, Iraq in 2004, and from 2004-2005 an adviser on counterinsurgency to the Strategy, Plans, and Analysis Office at Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters, Baghdad. Professor Hoffman was also an adviser to the Iraq Study Group. He has been a Distinguished Scholar, a Public Policy Scholar, a Senior Scholar, and a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.; a Senior Fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y.; a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel; and, a Visiting Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is also a contributing editor to The National Interest and a member of the Jamestown Foundation's Board of Directors; a member of the board of advisers to the FBI Intelligence Analysts Association; and, serves on the advisory boards to the Arms Sales Monitoring Project at the Federation of American Scientists and of Our Voices Together: September 11 Friends and Families to Help Build a Safer, More Compassionate World. Professor Hoffman holds degrees in government, history, and international relations and received his doctorate from Oxford University. In November 1994, the Director of Central Intelligence awarded Professor Hoffman the United States Intelligence Community Seal Medallion, the highest level of commendation given to a non-government employee, which recognizes sustained superior performance of high value that distinctly benefits the interests and national security of the United States. Jacob Ware is a Research Associate in the Counterterrorism and Studies Program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“It’s not just violence but the threat of violence that breathes life into terrorism, that gives it its power. For terrorism to have its power, it's not just the victim or the target— it’s the target audience, or the wider vicarious number of victims that terrorists hope to intimidate, coerce, and get them to behave in a different manner than they would have.” On today’s episode, expert on counter terrorism and insurgency Bruce Hoffman. He’s spent more then forty years studying trends, groups, and patterns of terrorism all over the world— but lately his focus has been right here in the Unites States. Fall 2020 is a time that Bruce Hoffman calls “unprecedented” in its threat level and in the fact that so many threats are domesticated right here in the US. With both a look at history and the present, he sees the US invasion of Iraq as the “original sin, the initial cleavage” in the discord between certain sectors of the public and government institutions in this country. What is going to happen election day and beyond? Are people going to feel free to vote their conscience, all over this country, without feeling threatened? Bruce Hoffman is Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W. Davis senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has been studying terrorism and insurgency for four decades. He is a tenured professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he is the director of the Center for Jewish Civilization. Hoffman was previously director of both the Center for Security Studies and the Security Studies program from 2010-2017. Hoffman is also visiting professor of terrorism studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He previously held the corporate chair in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation and was director of RAND’s Washington, DC, office and vice president for external affairs. Appointed by the U.S. Congress to serve as a commissioner on the Independent Commission to Review the FBI’s Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization (9/11 Review Commission), Hoffman was a lead author of the commission’s final report. He was scholar in residence for counterterrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency between 2004 and 2006; an advisor on counterinsurgency to the Strategy, Plans, and Analysis office at Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq, from 2004 to 2005; and an advisor on counterterrorism to the Office of National Security Affairs, Coalition Provisional Authority, in Baghdad in 2004. Hoffman was also an advisor to the Iraq Study Group and member of the U.S. Congress–directed review of the curriculum, organization, and staffing of the U.S. National Intelligence University. Hoffman holds degrees in government, history, and international relations and received his doctorate from Oxford University. -------------------------------------- Please consider supporting Talking Beats with Daniel Lelchuk via our Patreon: patreon.com/talkingbeats In addition to early episode access, bonus episodes, and other benefits, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. We believe that providing a platform for individual expression, free thought, and a diverse array of views is more important now than ever.

Michael Eisenstadt is the Kahn Fellow and director of The Washington Institute’s Military and Security Studies Program. A specialist in Persian Gulf and Arab-Israeli security affairs, he has published widely on irregular and conventional warfare, and nuclear weapons proliferation in the Middle East. Prior to joining the Institute in 1989, Mr. Eisenstadt worked as a military analyst with the U.S. government. Mr. Eisenstadt served for twenty-six years as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve before retiring in 2010. His military service included active-duty stints in Iraq with the United States Forces-Iraq headquarters (2010) and the Human Terrain System Assessment Team (2008); in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Jordan with the U.S. Security Coordinator (USSC) for Israel and the Palestinian Authority (2008-2009); at U.S. Central Command headquarters and on the Joint Staff during Operation Enduring Freedom and the planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom (2001-2002); and in Turkey and Iraq during Operation Provide Comfort (1991). He has also served in a civilian capacity on the Multinational Force-Iraq/U.S. Embassy Baghdad Joint Campaign Plan Assessment Team (2009) and as a consultant or advisor to the congressionally mandated Iraq Study Group (2006), the Multinational Corps-Iraq Information Operations Task Force (2005-2006), and the State Department’s Future of Iraq defense policy working group (2002-2003). In 1992, he took a leave of absence from the Institute to work on the U.S. Air Force Gulf War Air Power Survey.

Robert Michael "Bob" Gates (born September 25, 1943) is an American politician, scholar, and university president who served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011. Gates initially began his career serving as an officer in the United States Air Force but was quickly recruited by the CIA. Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and was Director of Central Intelligence under President George H. W. Bush. After leaving the CIA, Gates became president of Texas A&M University and was a member of several corporate boards. Gates served as a member of the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan commission co- chaired by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, that studied the lessons of the Iraq War.

A landmark history of the battles between Jews, Arabs, and the British that led to the creation of Israel, based on newly available documents from the British, Israeli, and U.S. Archives. Anonymous Soldiers chronicles the British Mandate in Palestine, nearly three decades of growing unrest that culminated in British withdrawal and the U.N. resolution to create two separate states. Based on newly available documents, Anonymous Soldiers tells the story of how Britain, in the twilight of empire, struggled and ultimately failed to reconcile competing Arab and Jewish demands. Anonymous Soldiers depicts how the British were beaten by a determined terrorist campaign led by the "anonymous soldiers" of Irgun and Lehi thus demonstrating that terrorism is not always the failed strategy that is often claimed. Anonymous Soldiers thus provides a uniquely detailed and sustained account of one of the 20th Century's most consequential terrorist and counterterrorist campaigns, and also provides a definitive account of the struggle for Israel. Professor Bruce Hoffman has been studying terrorism and insurgency for nearly four decades. He is a tenured professor in Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service where he is also the Director of both the Center for Security Studies and of the Security Studies Program. In addition, Professor Hoffman is visiting Professor of Terrorism Studies at St Andrews University, Scotland. He previously held the Corporate Chair in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation and was also Director of RAND's Washington, D.C. Office. Appointed by the U.S. Congress to serve as a commissioner on the Independent Commission to Review the FBI's Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization, Professor Hoffman was a lead author of the commission's final report. He was Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency between 2004 and 2006; an adviser on counterterrorism to the Office of National Security Affairs, Coalition Provisional Authority, Baghdad, Iraq in 2004, and from 2004-2005 an adviser on counterinsurgency to the Strategy, Plans, and Analysis Office at Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters, Baghdad. Professor Hoffman was also an adviser to the Iraq Study Group. He is the author of Inside Terrorism (2006). Professor Hoffman's most recent books are The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat: From 9/11 to Osama bin Laden's Death (2014), and Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947 (2015), which was awarded the Washington Institute for Near East Studies' Gold Medal for the best book on Middle Eastern politics, history and society published in 2015. Anonymous Soldiers was also named a best book of the year by both the St Louis Times-Disptach and the Kirkus Review and an "Editors' Choice" by the New York Times Book Review. The Safe Communities Institute (formerly DCI) has provided training to law enforcement professionals for more than six decades. The Safe Communities Institute engages research, interdisciplinary education and collaboration to advance sustainable "whole of community" public safety strategies, policies and programs.

Dr. Shibley Telhami Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, University of Maryland, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. Telhami has taught at a number of universities including Princeton, Swarthmore, USC, Ohio State, Columbia, Cornell, and the University of California at Berkley, where he received his Ph.D. in political science. Among his publications are The Stakes: America and the Middle East (2002) and Power and Leadership in International Bargaining: The Path to the Camp David Accords (1990), as well as numerous other articles and books. This year, Telhami has published two new books: The Peace Puzzle: America’s Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, 1989-2011 (co-authored, January 2013); and The World Through Arab Eyes: Arab Public Opinion and the Reshaping of the Middle East (June 2013). He was an advisor to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and to Congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Indiana) and, more recently, as senior advisor to George Mitchell, President Obama’s United States Special Envoy for Middle East Peace (2009-2011). He also served on the Iraq Study Group and on the U.S. Commission on Public Diplomacy. Telhami received a B.A. in mathematics, an M.A. in philosophy and religion, and a Ph.D. in political science. He was selected by the Carnegie Corporation of New York with the New York Times as one of the "Great Immigrants" for 2013

Lee Hamilton, co-chair of the Iraq Study Group and the 9/11 Commission, discusses how America can accomplish its goals in the world while recognizing the limitations of our power. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 14357]

American and Iraqi casualties are mounting, Republicans are defecting, and Democrats are challenging the President's war powers once again. Will a phased withdrawal come sooner than planned, as the Iraq Study Group recommended a year ago? Have officials in Baghdad lost the chance to influence debate in Washington? Also, Pakistani troops raid the Red Mosque in Islamabad, and baseball's All-Star game.

U.S. government pre-war planning documents stated that the new Iraqi government would have to privatize its oil industry. The Iraq Study Group said the same thing after the war.The new Iraqi oil law just unveiled would do just that:A new oil law set to go before the Iraqi Parliament this month would, if passed...transform Iraq’s oil industry from a nationalized model closed to American oil

The Iraq Study Group Report's Recommendations Sections gives a total of 79 recommendations for how the US should proceed in Iraq.  Diplomatically, the US should do more by launching the New Diplomatic Offensive accompanied by the creation of a Support Group (full of regional and world powers) in order to discuss and compromise on a variety of issues.  This support group should include Iran and Syria because, even though the White House has problems with their respective governments, both countries would benefit from negotiating since both countries put a lot of effort into Iraq.  Also, the US should threaten withdrawal whenever the Iraqi Government does not reach its benchmarks on time (these include the ratification of the Petroleum Law, the Militia Law, etc.).  Even if it does reach these benchmarks, though, the US should begin a gradual rollback of forces.  First, active combat forces should be moved into Iraqi Army Brigade protection roles, Iraqi Army training roles, and Iraqi Army support roles (Special Operations, Air Support, etc.).  Then, these training forces should also be slowly pulled out of Iraq as the Iraqi security forces gain more power.  By early 2008, the US should be 100% training and 0% occupation.  The Iraq Study Group is a bipartisan commission led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton. This episode summarizes the recommendations section of the Iraq Study Group Report. The previous episode featured the Iraq Study Group's assessment of the current situation. For more information, read: Iraq Study Group Report Military History Podcast is sponsored by Armchair General Magazine and the International Research and Publishing Corporation

The Iraq Study Group Report's Assessment section is an excellent summary of post-war Iraq.  Some topics addressed include the division of the country into Kurd, Shiite, and Sunni regions, the lack of unity in Parliament, the powerful hold that Muqtada Al-Sadr has on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the fierce fight over oil revenues, the lack of Iraq's own security force, and so on.  The Iraq Study Group is a bipartisan commission led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton.  This episode summarizes the assessment section of the Iraq Study Group Report.  The next episode will feature the Iraq Study Group's recommendations for how we should proceed. For more information, read: Iraq Study Group Report Military History Podcast is sponsored by Armchair General Magazine and the International Research and Publishing Corporation

In the last few years, we've all seen nothing but mass violations of virtually every international human rights treaty. Torture, secret prisons, extraordinary rendition, violence against civilians, orders to ignore the Geneva Conventions .... The list goes on and on. How has the American government dealt with this state of affairs? It has virtually ignored it. There have been a handful of military prosecutions against relatively low level people, but there is a steel ceiling, above which the prosecutors dare not go. That's because the violations of international law go to the highest levels of the U.S. government. Writer Lila Rajiva argues, in her remarkable The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American Media (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2005), that the tortures at Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad shows something deep and ugly in the American state: "The Prometheans of today acknowledge no limits except of their own imagining, and at least for now the world that they find themselves in allows them the self-indulgence of that imagining. With such absolute power comes absolute corruption, only not the corruption that the law easily unmasks, the simple corruption of bribery and chicanery. The occupation of Iraq displays ample evidence of that as well, but the deeper corruption that rote the institutions of America today is one legitimated by law, whose presence is revealed not in the courthouse but in the solitary recesses of prison cells hidden from the light. Torture is the insignia of this corrupt power. Torture is the deadly proof of the metastasizing cancer of American empire." [p. 186] Rajiva tells us many of the stories from Iraq that have been largely whitewashed from the safe coverage that the corporate media airs. She tells us the many cases where Iraqi women were raped by Americans, and subjected to public humiliations. Perhaps if more Americans read, saw or heard such accounts, they would not be mystified by the steady growing of the insurgency in Iraq, which is surely fueled, in part, by how Americans treated Iraqi men and women in prisons there. The corporate US media has done more to misinform its public than to inform them. They keep Americans in the dark, while people all around the world know more about America than Americans. In this context, we can continue the illusion that the US is 'doing good' in this new kind of colonialism of Arab lands. It is this mass disinformation campaign that allows political figures to float the mad idea of more troops in Iraq. The somewhat tame Iraq Study Group report has come and gone, with supporters of the military-industrial-complex working their media assets to insure that their defense contractors keep getting paid. Discussions over Geneva Conventions might as well be about treaties with space aliens, as arcane as they are to most of us. But the Geneva Conventions aren't rocket science. There are 4 of them. The first governs wounded and sick soldiers; the second relates to the treatment of war prisoners captured at sea; the third deals with treatment of prisoners of war; and the fourth governs how citizens should be treated in times of war. Under the articles of these conventions, people had express rights to fair, humane treatment, family visitation, and the right to be processed by "competent tribunal"[s]. As the flicks from Abu Ghraib showed, in living color, folks were treated like dogs. Geneva, though, to be 'quaint', didn't apply. When it comes to the Empire, there is no higher law. The Emperor has spoken: that is all that is needed to launch wars, torture, terrorize, bomb, imprison, kill, obliterate. That kind of logic can only lead to more disaster. Copyright 2006 Mumia Abu-Jamal [Source: Rajiva, L., *The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American Media* (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2005).]

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The Iraq Study Group says Iraq is in danger of "chaos," "anarchy" and "collapse." It proposes dramatic changes that may be difficult for President Bush to accept. We hear the early White House response and debate the recommendations. Then, by banning trans fats in restaurants, will New York City change the way America eats?

This extra chunky installment of Punditocracy smears itself over such wide ranging topics as the Iraq Study Group, Jerry Falwell's monumental buttocks, and pounding our Wiinis til it hurts. It's a bunker-busting-sized politics & culture cluster bomb! (Music: The Black Keys, "Just Got To Be")

Donald Rumsfeld's proposed replacement has told a Senate committee that America is not winning the war in Iraq. We hear more about former CIA Director Robert Gates, his controversial career and his possible role in America's military future. Plus, strained relations between Britain and Russia over the radioactive poisoning of a former Russian spy, and with their work over, leaders of the Iraq Study Group have sat for pictures in Men's Vogue magazine.  We get an update on tomorrow's much-awaited report.

After the summit in Jordan, President Bush appears to reject James Baker's Iraq Study Group even before its recommendations get to the White House. Prime Minister al-Maliki may be losing control of his government. Who's running Iraq?  What should the US do? Plus, traces of radiation discovered in a dozen sites during the investigation into the death of the late Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, and does immigration cause violence and crime, or make cities safer?