Iraq after America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance

Speaker: Colonel Joel Rayburn, National Defense University Chair: Toby Dodge, LSE More than a decade after the US-led invasion of Iraq, most studies of the Iraq conflict focus on the twin questions of whether the United States should have entered Iraq in 2003 and whether it should have exited in 2011, but few have examined the new Iraqi state and society on its own merits. In this lecture, Joel Rayburn presents his book Iraq After America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance, in which he examines the government and the sectarian and secular factions that have emerged in Iraq since the US invasion of 2003, presenting the interrelations among the various elements in the Iraqi political scene. Tracing the origins of key trends in recent Iraqi history to explain the political and social forces that produced them, particularly during the intense period of civil war between 2003 and 2009, he looks at some of the most significant players in the new Iraq, explaining how they have risen to prominence and what their aims are. Recorded on 17 February 2015.