Lebanon at 100: The French mandate’s mixed blessing

Lebanon, 9-1-1920, Solemn proclamation of Greater Lebanon in Beirut , General Gouraud, surrounded by the Maronite patriarch, Msgr Hoyek, and the Mufti, listening to the city's governor, Negib bey Abussuan. (Getty Images/File Photo)
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Updated 03 September 2020
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Lebanon at 100: The French mandate’s mixed blessing

  • Sectarian politics thrived long before Greater Lebanon was created during the Mutasarifiya system
  • Lebanon was meant to be a ‘friendly’ entity to anchor French presence in the Middle East

NEW YORK CITY: It was amidst the ruins of the Aug. 4 Beirut port explosion, surrounded by traumatized citizens who seemed comforted by his presence, that French President Emmanuel Macron found himself in the surreal position of having to announce that he would return on Sept. 1 to commemorate the creation of Greater Lebanon. 

Macron’s interaction with regular Lebanese on that day has invited re-examination of the past hundred years, during which France, despite all misgivings, was always called “the tender mother”. What separates the events that led to the creation of the modern Lebanese state and those that had brought the French leader to Beirut, is much more than just the passage of 100 years. 

As his ship crossed the Atlantic on its way to Paris in 1919, US President Woodrow Wilson was armed by an unwavering vision for a new world order in the aftermath of the First World War: Affairs between nations would be conducted in the open, on the basis of sovereignty, self-determination and the repudiation of military force to settle dispute. 

The victorious Allies gathered at the Paris Peace Conference to set the terms for the defeated Central Powers. A question was on everyone’s mind: What to do with the pieces left of the Ottoman Empire, the “sick man,” and every other empire that collapsed? 

Back then, in the US, there was heavy opposition to colonialism. The US would never join the fight to help maintain and expand European empires. Instead, there would be mandates given to small, well-run countries, perhaps Scandinavian countries, Wilson thought, that would not have the ambition or resources to turn the protectorates into colonies. It would just give the newborn states good advice. 

“But of course, as soon as Wilson got to Paris, there was no way the prime ministers of France or Britain were going to let him do that,” said historian Elizabeth Thompson, author of “How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs.” 

Paris and London were negotiating their own new order for the Middle East, and it could not have been more anathema to Wilson’s vision. France had invested so much in Syria and Lebanon during the previous century that it insisted on creating a “friendly” entity that would anchor the French presence in the Middle East. 

The new entity had to be a safe haven for the Maronite Christian minority for whom High Commissioner Gen. Henri Gouraud, a passionate Catholic himself, felt very warmly. Christian fears were exacerbated by the sight of their Armenian counterparts dying by the roadside during the genocide perpetrated by the Turks. 




In Beirut, General Gouraud, accompanied by General Goybet, passes before a double row of infantrymen in 1920. (Alamy) 

A locust wave decimated the mountain crops and resulted in famine which, compounded by the Allies’ blockade of Beirut’s coast, killed tens of thousands. Emotions, then, were running high on the first day of September 1920. 

Behind the trappings of the proclamation ceremony, an important fact was kept under wraps: When the French pleaded with the British to lift the blockade off the Beirut coast, the latter refused. The blockade was to remain. Starvation was exactly the point. Deaths continued to rise. 

“Macron reappeared on the explosion site to extend sympathy and promises of help, almost exactly 100 years later,” Thompson said. “Macron is to be lauded: In February 2017 he visited Algeria as he was campaigning for office, called colonialism a crime against humanity, and urged the French to apologize. 

“But I have heard no mention of an apology for actions the French took in Lebanon 100 years ago, even as the League of Nations awarded them the mandate. 

“When World War I ended, the French came with sacks of grain and declared themselves the saviors of the poor Lebanese. Then, they installed a sectarian regime: Access to political office and representation was defined along the lines of what religion you belong to. 

“Sectarianism segments the citizenry. The direct opposite would the project of French Revolution: to create no mediating. It is kind of ironic, isn’t it, that the French came up with this system of power? 

“That sectarian system laid the seeds for the deep divisions within Lebanese politics that we all now know too well have weakened the development of a stable government, which could ideally care for all Lebanese people.” 

Then again, sectarian politics was thriving long before Greater Lebanon. In the preceding system, known as Mutasarifiya, sectarian institutions had already emerged in an attempt to create a balance among communities. 

“What the French mandate did, however, was anchor that sectarianism, continuing a pattern that was prevalent under the Ottomans,” said Michael Young, author of “The Ghosts of Martyrs Square” and a senior editor at Carnegie Middle East Center. 

“When, in 1943, the Lebanese came to an agreement on their National Pact, a lot of what the French had introduced during the mandate became custom. For example, the president is Christian, the prime minister is Sunni and the speaker of the parliament Shia.” 

Lebanese poet Henri Zoghaib, who has been advocating for a secular state for years, believes “sectarianism in religion is good, for every religion has its sects. But sectarianism in the state is a disaster. 

“The French Revolution began way before 1789 when the nobility and the clergy were tyrannizing society. When the revolution matured and the Bastille was stormed, the clergy were put in their place, and politicians in theirs. The people became the source of power. The people were the ‘word of God.’ Only when the same happens in Lebanon, will we be delivered from this monster called sectarianism.” 

For all its faults, however, Young believes that sectarianism is naturally a pluralistic system.

“If Lebanon was Lebanon between 45 and 75, the sectarian system made that possible,” he said.

“Sectarianism made it difficult to have an absolute state suffocating society like you had in Syria.

“In Lebanon, because you had a weak state, you had a much stronger, more varied and independent society. Sectarianism was good in that it generated pluralism.”

Young makes a key distinction between sectarianism as it had been prior to the 1975 Lebanese civil war, and the version that emerged after it ended. 

“When the war ended in 1990, you had a new order established by the Syrians and the Saudis, who came to a kind of consensus over Lebanon, that became known as the Taif Accord, and that eventually brought the nomination of Rafik Hariri as a prime minister,” he said. 




Picture dated August 2, 1982, shows Israeli shelling of west Beirut. (AFP/File Photo)

“You also had the Syrian hegemony in the country, and what did the Syrians do? They basically gave their wartime Lebanese political allies positions in the state. 

“Before 75 you still had a Lebanese state. It had problems, but you had the state. Through the 1950s and 1960s, Presidents Camille Chamoun, Fouad Chehab and Charles Helou (all) had a statist approach: they strove to expand the power of the state and its institutions.

“At the end of the war, the state had been severely damaged. What the (Syrians) established instead was a system of sectarian pie-sharing. The state was given to sectarian wartime leaders, and they pillaged it throughout 40 years.”

Young added: “Another problem of the sectarian system today is it has become an excuse to block everything. Today, because there is no consensus, everything is blocked. We have a completely dysfunctional system.” 

Behind the glitz of the proclamation ceremony of 1920, what the Christians really did was link their fate to another country: France. Reliance on outside forces turned out to be a pattern in Lebanese history that for decades continued to blight the country’s progress and fan the flames of rivalries within Lebanese factions. 

And so, in the aftermath of the 1967 defeat, when Lebanon received the Palestinians, part of the Lebanese population sided with Palestinian militancy. Similarly, in 1982, when Ariel Sharon entered Lebanon, the Maronites built an alliance with Israel, without any consensus reached with the other communities.

“All the Lebanese communities have ignored the rules of the sectarian game which demands and imposes modesty. No one here is modest,” said Young. 

In his book, Young compares then-President Bachir Gemayel to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah: “Both of them reflect one of the fundamental problems of Lebanon: they had their own sectarian, communal agenda, and they expected they could impose it on the majority of the Lebanese.

“Since the end of the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2005, Hezbollah has been pushing the Iranian agenda in Lebanon and the region.

“Once again, we are at this inflection point where we can stabilize the situation, but one minority somehow wants to impose its vision on the others.

“When Hezbollah wants to intimate people, it will ultimately end in civil war because that is the nature of the system. Communities begin to respond when they feel threatened. And they ally with other communities that feel threatened as well.

“Today, we have a dominant military force called Hezbollah that is not allowing for the consolidation of a sovereign state. We’re coming back to the problem we had after 1967 of a state existing in parallel with an anti-state. This cannot last forever. Sooner or later one has to take over the other.

“Tensions will continue until this issue is resolved. And on top of it, Hezbollah is an armed group that is not loyal to Lebanon. It is loyal to a foreign power. And that is the problem.

“It is not because Hezbollah today has weapons and can intimidate people that it can impose its will on the majority. It cannot. That’s a simple fact.

“Even if there is a civil war in Lebanon now, Hezbollah may be the best armed, but I don’t think it would win the war. The game of intimidation does not work in a sectarian context. You have to respect the rules of the sectarian game.




Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Shiite movement Hezbollah, giving a televised address from an undisclosed location in Lebanon. (AFP/Al-Manar/File Photo) 

“Hezbollah is a Frankenstein created by many people. It was not only Iran, not only the contradictions in the Lebanese society, but believe it or not, after 1990 it was also created by all those who supported the Syrian order in Lebanon.

“Don’t tell this to the Americans. They don’t like to hear it, but they supported the Syrian order that reinforced Hezbollah and used it as an instrument in the Syrian-Israeli negotiations, at a time when the US had completely accepted and recognized Syria’s dominant role in the country.

“Hezbollah has many fathers.”

In conclusion, Young said: “We have no domestic agenda. Our agenda is always tied to someone outside of Lebanon. every community has been weakened by it. The Maronites lost power. The Sunnis lost power. Now Hezbollah and the Shia. We will see where they’re going.”

For his part, Zoghaib, the poet cried out “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa” for the all the mistakes he said he and his people had committed against their beloved country.

In his poet’s optimism, he quickly moved on to embrace hope. “This nation is filled with temples, Muslim and Christian. When in the heart of the capital, the Mohamed Al-Amine mosque embraces Saint George’s cathedral. That is the image of true Lebanon,” he told Arab News.

“What value do the cross and crescent have if we didn’t respect them, and honored the teachings of the Quran and the Bible? ‘In the Name of God, the most Gracious and Merficul’ and ‘In the Name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit’ are two paths going upward to the same destination: God. Lebanon is really ‘Leb-Anon’ — ‘The heart of God.’”

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Twitter: @EphremKossaify


Medical NGO blames new US aid group for deadly Gaza chaos

Updated 02 June 2025
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Medical NGO blames new US aid group for deadly Gaza chaos

  • Humanitarian aid must be provided only by humanitarian organizations who have the competence and determination to do it safely and effectively

RAFAH, Palestinian Territories: Medical charity Doctors Without Borders said Sunday that people it treated at a Gaza aid site run by a new US-backed organization reported being “shot from all sides” by Israeli forces.
The NGO, known by its French name MSF, blamed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid distribution system for chaos at the scene in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli fire killed 31 Palestinians at the site. Witnesses told AFP the Israeli military had opened fire.
The GHF and Israeli authorities denied any such incident took place but MSF and other medics reported treating crowds of locals with gunshot wounds at the Nasser hospital in the nearby town of Khan Younis.
“Patients told MSF they were shot from all sides by drones, helicopters, boats, tanks and Israeli soldiers on the ground,” MSF said in a statement.
MSF emergency coordinator Claire Manera in the statement called the GHF’s system of aid delivery “dehumanizing, dangerous and severely ineffective.”
“It has resulted in deaths and injuries of civilians that could have been prevented. Humanitarian aid must be provided only by humanitarian organizations who have the competence and determination to do it safely and effectively.”
MSF communications officer Nour Alsaqa in the statement reported hospital corridors filled with patients, mostly men, with “visible gunshot wounds in their limbs.”
MSF quoted one injured man, Mansour Sami Abdi, as describing people fighting over just five pallets of aid.
“They told us to take food — then they fired from every direction,” he said. “This isn’t aid. It’s a lie.”
The Israeli military said an initial inquiry found its troops “did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site.”
A GHF spokesperson said: “These fake reports have been actively fomented by Hamas,” the Islamic militant group that Israel has vowed to destroy in Gaza.


Algeria ‘regrets’ Britain backing Morocco autonomy plan for W.Sahara

Updated 02 June 2025
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Algeria ‘regrets’ Britain backing Morocco autonomy plan for W.Sahara

  • “Algeria regrets the choice made by the United Kingdom to support to the Moroccan autonomy plan

ALGIERS: Algeria’s foreign ministry said it “regrets” Britain’s decision on Sunday to support Morocco’s automony plan for the disputed territory of Western Sahara, overturning a decades-long policy in favor of self-determination.
“Algeria regrets the choice made by the United Kingdom to support to the Moroccan autonomy plan. In 18 years of existence, this plan has never been submitted to the Sahrawis as a basis for negotiation, nor has it ever been taken seriously by the successive UN envoys,” the ministry said in a statement.
 

 


Egypt’s foreign minister urges end to Israeli war in Gaza during call with Witkoff

Updated 01 June 2025
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Egypt’s foreign minister urges end to Israeli war in Gaza during call with Witkoff

  • Badr Abdelatty emphasized that a just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires a comprehensive political settlement
  • He said alleviating the humanitarian suffering in Gaza must be a priority for the international community

LONDON: Egypt's Foreign Minister, Badr Abdelatty, stressed the urgent need for an immediate cessation of Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip during a phone call with Steve Witkoff, the US President's Special Envoy to the Middle East.

Abdelatty emphasized that alleviating the humanitarian suffering in the Palestinian coastal enclave must be a priority for the international community and called for unconditional access to humanitarian aid.

He emphasized that a just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires a comprehensive political settlement that aligns with President Trump's vision for sustainable peace in the Middle East, the Emirates News Agency reported.

Abdelatty was a member of the Ministerial Committee designated by the Joint Extraordinary Arab-Islamic Summit on Gaza, which Israel prevented from visiting the occupied West Bank on Sunday to meet with Palestinian officials in Ramallah.

Arab ministers from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, and Egypt, along with the Secretary-General of the Arab League, condemned what they described as the "arrogant" decision by Israel to block their visit and its rejection of any peace efforts.


Is Iraq ready to stand alone against extremist threats if US withdrawal goes ahead?

Updated 02 June 2025
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Is Iraq ready to stand alone against extremist threats if US withdrawal goes ahead?

  • Decades of training and investment have improved security forces, but critical capability gaps remain
  • Analysts warn premature pullout could erase progress against extremism and empower armed groups

LONDON: When Daesh extremists seized control of swathes of Iraqi territory in 2014, many wondered whether the onslaught could have been prevented had US troops not withdrawn from the country three years earlier.

As the militants surged into Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, there were reports of members of the Iraqi Security Forces stripping off their uniforms as they fled.

“We can’t beat them,” an unnamed army officer told Reuters amid the chaos. “They are well-trained in street fighting, and we’re not. We need a whole army to drive them out of Mosul.”

After three years of fierce fighting that took Daesh within 25 kilometers of the capital, Baghdad, the extremists were finally driven back and Mosul was liberated.

The gargantuan military effort was spearheaded by Iraq’s elite Counter Terrorism Service, bolstered by the return of American troops and the US Air Force.

Crack troops of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Services (CTS) advance in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighborhood on May 12, 2017 during an offensive to retake the area from Daesh jihadis. (AFP)

Images of the destruction in Mosul, along with the catastrophic impact of Daesh’s occupation, might be playing on the minds of Washington officials as they once again weigh whether or not to remove American troops still stationed in Iraq.

As it stands, the US and Iraq have agreed to end Operation Inherent Resolve — the US-led coalition’s mission to combat Daesh — by September. Most of the 2,500 US personnel in Iraq are scheduled to leave in the initial phase, with a small number remaining until 2026.

Many believe US President Donald Trump, acting under his isolationist tendencies, will want to hasten the withdrawal of those forces, or is unlikely to extend their stay if the Iraqi government requests it.

With reports of an increase in attacks by Daesh sleeper cells, fears of instability across the border in Syria, and with Iran looking to shore up its proxy militias in Iraq, there are concerns that another complete US withdrawal will once again leave the country vulnerable.

“The risk of premature withdrawal from Iraq is that the Iraqi Security Forces will lose critical operational and tactical support, and Daesh will seize the opportunity to reconstitute and once again terrorize the Iraqi people and state,” Dana Stroul, research director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former Pentagon official, told Arab News.

The mooted withdrawal of US troops comes more than 20 years after the US-led invasion of Iraq toppled Saddam Hussain, freeing the country from dictatorship, but ushering in a period of sectarian civil war.

File photo showing US soldiers near an Iraqi army base on the outskirts of Mosul during the fight against Daesh militants on November 23, 2016. (AFP)

US forces were drawn into cycles of violence and routinely became the target of two mutually antagonistic sectarian forces: Iran-backed militias and an insurgency in which Al-Qaeda played a prominent role.

When President Barack Obama took office in 2009, he vowed to end US involvement in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not without first ordering a massive troop surge in an attempt to salvage the mission.

In Iraq, where more than 100,000 people were estimated to have died in the violence, there was widespread public anger at the American presence. In the US, the war was also deeply unpopular with thousands of American soldiers having been killed.

Some American and Iraqi officials wanted to maintain a US military presence in the country, fearful of an Al-Qaeda resurgence. But attempts to negotiate an agreement for a reduced force failed and in October 2011 Obama announced that all of the remaining 39,000 US troops would be withdrawn by the end of that year, bringing a close to the mission.

The US spent $25 billion on training and equipping Iraq’s security forces up to September 2012, alongside Iraq’s own spending on fighter jets and other advanced materiel. So it was something of a surprise that Iraqi forces were so quickly overrun when Daesh launched its offensive in 2014, having emerged from the remnants of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Images of Daesh fighters driving around in US armored vehicles captured from the Iraqi military symbolized how quickly Iraq’s armed forces had deteriorated since the 2011 withdrawal.

An image grab taken from a propaganda video released on March 17, 2014 by the Daesh's al-Furqan Media militants with their flag as they stand on a captured armored vehicle in Iraq’s Anbar province. (AFP/File)

As the extent of Daesh’s brutality began to emerge, including the slaughter of the Yazidi minority and the beheading of Western hostages on YouTube, the US ordered its forces back to the region, as part of an international coalition, to fight the extremists in both Iraq and Syria.

After some of the most brutal urban warfare seen since the Second World War, Iraq’s then-prime minister, Haider Al-Abadi, declared the territorial defeat of Daesh in December 2017. US forces continued to help their allies in Syria to defeat the extremists there in March 2019.

By December 2021, US forces in Iraq no longer held combat roles, instead working on training, advisory, and intelligence support for the country’s military. The remaining 2,500 US troops are spread between Baghdad, Irbil in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, and Ain Al-Asad air base.

However, soon after Al-Abadi’s declaration of victory over the extremists, a new threat emerged in Iraq in the shape of Iran-backed militias, originally mobilized to help defeat Daesh. Having extended their reach over Sunni and Kurdish areas, these groups began attacking US bases with rockets and drones in a bid to force their immediate withdrawal.

Members of the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces) paramilitary unit take part in a parade in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on December 10, 2024, to mark the nation’s victory against Daesh militants. (AFP)

These attacks, sponsored by Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, prompted President Trump, during his first term, to order the killing of militia chief Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis and Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike on their motorcade as they left Baghdad Airport on Jan. 3, 2020.

Soleimani’s death was a major setback for Iran’s proxies throughout the region, but the attacks on US positions did not subside. In fact, with the onset of the war in Gaza in October 2023, Iraq’s Shiite militias mounted a fresh wave of strikes, ostensibly in support of Hamas.

The deadliest of these occurred on Jan. 28, 2024, when three US personnel were killed and 47 wounded in a drone attack on Tower 22 just over the border in Jordan, prompting then-US president, Joe Biden, to order a wave of airstrikes on militia positions in Iraq.

Mindful of the need to protect its proxies in Iraq, at a time where Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis have been weakened and the sympathetic Assad regime in Syria has fallen, Iran appears to have forsworn further militia strikes on US forces.

This picture taken on January 8, 2022, shows Iraqi Shiites commemorating the second anniversary of the killing of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi paramilitary commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (posters) in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. (AFP)

The latest agreement to end the US presence was reached in September last year with the aim of moving to a fully bilateral security partnership in 2026.

Meanwhile, the US Defense Department announced in April it would be halving the number of troops in northeast Syria “in the coming months.”

An indication of Trump’s aversion to the continued US military presence came during a speech in Saudi Arabia while on his tour of the Gulf in May when he decried “Western interventionists.”

A clear concern surrounding a US withdrawal is whether Iraq’s security forces are now strong enough to withstand threats like the 2014 Daesh assault. The disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 is also no doubt fresh in the minds of defense officials.

A recent report by the New Lines Institute think tank in New York said that a US withdrawal from Iraq would “heavily impede the intelligence and reconnaissance collection, artillery, and command-and-control capabilities of Iraqi military forces.”

The report studied quarterly independent audits for the US Congress between 2019 and 2024 to assess the capabilities of Iraqi forces. It looked at the three main forces in Iraq: the Iraqi Security Forces, Counter Terrorism Service, and the Kurdish Peshmerga.

The report said: “While segments of Iraq’s military, such as the CTS and Kurdish security forces, have proven efficient in counterterrorism operations, several gaps exist in Iraq’s conventional capabilities, including artillery, command and control, inter- and intra-branch planning, and trust.”

In this photo taken on October 20, 2016, Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters fire a multiple rocket launcher at a Daesh position near the town of Bashiqa, Iraq. Analysts fear that while segments of Iraq’s military, such as the CTS and Kurdish security forces called Peshmerga, have proven effective in the fight against Daesh, there are plenty of gaps in Iraq's national defense capabilities. (AFP)

The think tank said there were serious questions about whether Iraq’s security forces would be able to “hedge against internal and external challenges” in the absence of the US security umbrella.

The report’s co-author Caroline Rose, a director at New Lines, says the gaps in Iraqi capabilities “could reverse over a decade of progress that Operation Inherent Resolve has made in Iraq.”

“If the objective is still to advance Iraqi forces’ operational capacity, sustain gains against Daesh, and serve as a ‘hedge’ against Iranian influence, there is work still to be done,” she told Arab News.

While Iraq has enjoyed a period of relative stability, the threats to its national security continue to lurk within and beyond its borders.

The biggest fear is of a Daesh resurgence. Although the group has been severely depleted, it continues to operate cells in rural areas of Iraq and Syria, and has since made headway in Afghanistan, the Sahel, and beyond.

“Since January, the US military is still actively supporting the Iraqis,” said the Washington Institute’s Stroul. “There have been monthly operations against Daesh, including the killing of a senior leader in western Iraq. This tells us that Daesh is still a threat, and the US support mission is still necessary.”

's Security analysts have warned that the huge number of Daesh prisoners in northeast Syria posses a threat to the region in case they break out. (AFP)

Another concern is that instability in Syria, where the embryonic, post-Assad government is facing significant security challenges, could again provide a breeding ground for Daesh that could spill across the border.

“There are still 9,000 Daesh detainees held in prison camps in northeast Syria,” said Stroul, adding that these present “a real risk of prison breaks that will replenish Daesh ranks and destabilize Syria, Iraq, and the rest of the region. If the security situation deteriorates in Syria, this will have seriously negative impacts in Iraq.”

And then there is the ongoing threat posed by Iran-backed militias. While these militias have been officially recognized as part of Iraq’s security apparatus, some believe the US presence in Iraq helps keep them — and, by extension, Iran — in check.

“The staging of US forces and equipment, combined with a deep Iraqi dependence on American technical and advisory support, creates an obstacle and point of distraction for Tehran and its proxies,” Rose said.

If the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq is inevitable, then how can Washington best prepare Iraq to go it alone?

For Rose, the US should play a “long game” to sustain security ties with Iraq and preserve the progress made under Operation Inherent Resolve.

She recommended the US continue investing in Iraq’s defense and security, conducting regular joint military exercises, and using its current presence in Irbil and Baghdad to build strong relations with security officials.

She also advised other international bodies, like the NATO Mission-Iraq and the EU Advisory Mission Iraq, to coordinate closely with the US as the drawdown gets underway.

This photo taken on December 9, 2021, shows Iraqi and NATO military officials at a press briefing after a meeting on the continuing campaign against Daesh at the Joint Operations Center in Baghdad. (AFP)

Although the US appears set on pivoting away from the region to focus strategic attention on the Asia-Pacific, some still hope there could be a way for America to maintain some form of military presence, given the rapidly evolving situation in the wider Middle East.

Reports earlier this year suggested some senior Iraqi politicians aligned with Iran privately want a US presence to continue, at least until ongoing US-Iran nuclear talks reach a conclusion.

“The US military mission is one of support, advice, and assistance by mutual consent of Baghdad and Washington,” Stroul, of the Washington Institute, said. “If the Iraqi government invites the US military to remain for some period of time, there should be agreement on the supporting role that the US can play.”

If Iraq hopes to maintain lasting stability, it needs to ensure its security forces can act alone to protect the country and population from internal and external threats.

Continuing to work with the world’s foremost military power, even in a limited capacity, would go some way to ensuring the horrors of 2014 are not repeated.
 

 


Egypt unveils plan for new desert city in latest megaproject

Updated 01 June 2025
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Egypt unveils plan for new desert city in latest megaproject

  • The new city, named Jirian, meaning “Flow” in Arabic, is part of Egypt’s Nile Delta scheme, a massive agricultural initiative to reclaim about 2.5 million acres west of the original Nile Delta

CAIRO: Egypt has unveiled plans for a vast new urban development west of Cairo where a man-made channel of the River Nile will eventually wind through what was once arid desert.

The new city, named Jirian, meaning “Flow” in Arabic, is part of Egypt’s Nile Delta scheme, a massive agricultural initiative to reclaim about 2.5 million acres west of the original Nile Delta.

The ambitious agricultural project, which started in 2021, seeks to boost production of strategic crops such as wheat and corn while reducing the North African country’s food import bill.

The project is the latest in a string of megaprojects launched by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in recent years, including a new administrative capital east of Cairo.

While officials say these projects are key to Egypt’s long-term growth, they have also contributed to the country’s soaring foreign debt, which quadrupled since 2015 to reach $155.2 billion by late 2024.

The country has also received billions of dollars from the International Monetary Fund and the EU to ensure its financial stability, with the EU pledging billions more last month.

At a launch event on Sunday, Egyptian Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli called the Jirian project “an urban and development revolution.”

He added that it would create 250,000 jobs and serve as the cornerstone of a wider development zone equivalent in size to four to five governorates.

“We are talking about full-spectrum development,” he told reporters, describing a sprawling urban zone that will include industry, logistics hubs, and homes for “between 2.5 and 3 million families.”

The government did not disclose the project’s total cost, which is being developed in partnership with three major Egyptian real estate firms.

The new Nile Delta project comes at a time when Egypt is already under pressure to secure its water future.

With 97 percent of its fresh water sourced from the Nile, the country has been locked in a years-long dispute with Addis Ababa over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which Cairo fears could reduce downstream water flows.