American Enterprise Institute's Danielle Pletka moderates a discussion on the future of the Iraqi military. The panel includes representative from the Iraqi Air Force and Armed Forces, Lt. General Nasier Abadi. Also participating, Michael Eisenstadt, Washington Institute of Near East Studies, describes progress made to date.
LTG Nasier A. Abadi is the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Joint Forces. He oversees the operation of the headquarters joint staff. He also provides advice to the Chief of Staff of the Joint Forces and the civilian leadership of the government of Iraq in developing and implementing the national security and military strategies. LTG Abadi was recalled to military service in September 2003 as a senior advisor providing assistance and leadership during the formation and development of the new Iraqi Joint Forces.
Bio
Lt. Gen. Nasier A. Abadi
LTG Nasier A. Abadi is the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Joint Forces. He oversees the operation of the headquarters joint staff. He also provides advice to the Chief of Staff of the Joint Forces and the
civilian leadership of the government of Iraq in developing and implementing the national security and military strategies. LTG Abadi was recalled to military service in September 2003 as a senior advisor
providing assistance and leadership during the formation and development of the new Iraqi Joint Forces.
Michael Eisenstadt
Michael Eisenstadt is a senior fellow and director of The Washington Institute's Military and Security Studies Program. He is a specialist in Persian Gulf and Arab-Israeli security affairs and has published articles and monographs on U.S. strategy in the Middle East; regional security; nonconventional proliferation in the Near East and Southwest Asia; and the armed forces of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority.
Prior to joining the Institute in 1989, Mr. Eisenstadt worked as a civilian military analyst with the U.S. Army. In 1992, he took a leave of absence from the Institute to work on the U.S. Air Force Gulf War Air Power Survey, to which he contributed a chapter on Iraqi strategy and planning.
Danielle Pletka
Vice President, American Enterprise Institute, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies
Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI. Her research areas include the Middle East, South Asia, terrorism, and weapons proliferation. While at AEI, Ms. Pletka has developed a conference series on rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq and a project on democracy in the Arab world. She recently served as a member of the congressionally-mandated Task Force on the United Nations, established by the United States Institute of Peace. Before coming to AEI, she served for ten years as a senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Michael Rubin
Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at AEI and editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Between 2002 and 2004, Mr. Rubin worked as a staff advisor for Iran and Iraq in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he seconded to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He previously lectured in history at Yale University, Hebrew University, and three different universities in northern Iraq. Mr. Rubin is the co-author (with Patrick Clawson) of "Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos" (Palgrave, 2005), and the author of "Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran" (Palgrave, 2001).
It is nice to finally hear an Iraqi perspective on the Iraq situation. Lt. General Abadi addresses the failures of the Iraqi military strategy to date, however, outlines optimistic strategies to meet the challenges of sectarian violence, and outgrowing militias in the country.
Michael Rubin brought up a very important point when he talked about militias who provide social services when a weak government cannot—an action which has brought Hezbollah widespread citizen support. However, I was rather disturbed by his statement that the US should either find a way to provide those services in Iraq or, if they are unable to do so, make sure that their adversaries do not. Isn’t it better for Iraqis to receive badly-needed social services—whatever their source may be—than not to have them at all?