Aftandilian in The Arab Weekly on U.S. Iraq Policy
Gregory Aftandilian, Lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published a recent Op-Ed on the Trump administration’s Iraq policy as well as the current ISIS threat.
Aftandilian’s Op-Ed, entitled “Death of US Marine in Iraq Brings Renewed Attention to ISIS Threat,” was published in The Arab Weekly on August 17, 2019.
From the text of the article:
Despite claims by US President Donald Trump that the Islamic State had been “100%” defeated, the combat death of a US service member in Iraq on August 10 underscored to policymakers and the public that the militant group remains a significant threat.
The US Marine who was killed was reportedly advising and accompanying Iraqi security forces on a planned operation in Nineveh province to weed out Islamic State (ISIS) cells.
For Iraqis, this was no surprise, because there have been bombings and shootings by ISIS against Iraqi soldiers and civilians in the past several months.
Indeed, a panel of UN experts issued a report to the UN Security Council in late July in which they state that ISIS’s centre of gravity remains Iraq where its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is believed to be hiding.
Aftandilian spent over 21 years in government service, most recently on Capitol Hill where he was foreign policy adviser to Congressman Chris Van Hollen (2007-2008), professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and foreign policy adviser to Senator Paul Sarbanes (2000-2004), and foreign policy fellow to the late Senator Edward Kennedy (1999).