The Invasion of Iraq – Twenty Years On
Channel: New America
Date: 03/03/2023

This month, the United States will mark 20 years since it invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003. In the wake of the invasion, hundreds of thousands of people would die in an ensuing civil war. The war also helped re-energize a jihadist movement that was struggling to deal with U.S. counterterrorism operations and the loss of safe haven in Afghanistan. The broader story of the Middle East region, including the Arab Spring protest wave, as well as the story of U.S. power more broadly cannot be told without close attention to the impact of the U.S. invasion. Even as the U.S. sought to put the Iraq war behind it, ISIS’ surge across Iraq in 2014 reiterated that the war and its aftermath continue.

Join New America's International Security Program for a discussion of the Iraq invasion and its ongoing impact 20 years after it started. To discuss this topic, New America welcomes Simona Foltyn, Joel Rayburn, and Abdulrazzaq Al-Saiedi. Simona Foltyn is a journalist based in Baghdad and PBS Newshour Special Correspondent and was previously Al Jazeera’s Iraq Correspondent from 2019-2021. Joel Rayburn is a retired U.S. Army officer and fellow with New America’s International Security Program. He has previously served as U.S. Special Envoy for Syria and as Senior Director for Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon on the National Security Council. He also directed the Army’s Operation Iraqi Freedom Study Group, producing an operational history of the Army’s experience in the Iraq war published in the two-volume study The U.S. Army in the Iraq War, for which Rayburn was co-author and editor. He is also author of Iraq After America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance. Abdulrazzaq Al-Saiedi is a technical expert on Iraq with the Physicians for Human Rights. Previously, he was a human rights/transitional justice officer with the UN Support Mission in Libya and a fellow at the Carr Center, where he examined electoral systems in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. He also reported on Iraqi politics for the New York Times. He was also a Harvard Nieman Fellow in 2007. He holds an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Join the conversation online using #IraqWar20th and following @NewAmericaISP.

PARTICIPANTS

Simona Foltyn, @SimonaFoltyn
Journalist Based in Baghdad
PBS Newshour Special Correspondent 

Joel Rayburn
Fellow, New America International Security Program
Author, The U.S. Army in the Iraq War
Former U.S. Special Envoy for Syria

Abdulrazzaq Al-Saiedi
Technical Expert on Iraq, Physicians for Human Rights

MODERATOR

Peter Bergen, @peterbergencnn
Vice President, New America
Co-Director, Center on the Future of War, ASU
Professor of Practice, ASU


====================================

We are dedicated to renewing the promise of America by continuing the quest to realize our nation's highest ideals, honestly confronting the challenges caused by rapid technological and social change, and seizing the opportunities those changes create.

Subscribe to our channel for new videos on a wide range of policy issues: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=newamericafoundation

Subscribe to The Week Ahead and other newsletters: http://www.newamerica.org/subscribe/#

Visit newamerica.org