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Yale University
Senior Fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute, where she lectures on the new Iraq and Middle East politics and author of The Unravelling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq
PROFILE
Emma Sky
Guest
FROM Emma Sky
To the Point
Defeating ISIS might be just the beginning With the votes still coming in, we’ll look ahead at one of the major challenges facing the next President of the United States: the fight against ISIS. It’s a legacy of George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, one that Barack Obama has struggled unsuccessfully to leave behind. The battle to liberate Mosul from the Islamic State has been raging for the past month. The US is backing an unlikely coalition of forces who’ve come together despite ancient grievances between one another.
To the Point
The Iraq We Left Behind, Is It a Democracy? As Iraq heads into parliamentary elections on Wednesday, the country is slipping back into civil war. Dozens of people have died at a campaign rally and polling sites. Fighting in Anbar province has destroyed villages and turned tens of thousands of Iraqis out of their homes. Scores of people were killed in suicide bombings at polling centers, where police and other government officials are casting early ballots. On Friday more than 30 people died in explosions at a campaign rally for Shiite groups in Baghdad. This year is on track to be the bloodiest since the height of sectarian violence in Iraq in 2006 and 2007. Will bloodshed and religious strife derail democracy? Will this election change anything given Iraq's increasingly authoritarian Prime Minister? Should the US recommit to help stabilize this fledgling democracy it withdrew from little more than two years ago?
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To the Point
The Trump agenda: where's the beef? President Trump says big things are happening. After celebrating a House bill on health care, he doesn’t yet have Senate agreement. With James Comey’s public testimony scheduled tomorrow, the President today tweeted his selection of a new FBI Director. Is the Chief Executive all style and no substance? Later, terror attacks in Iran and conflicting claims about who’s behind them.
Left, Right & Center
How was the trip? President Trump's travels got less fun as he went from the Middle East to Europe.
To the Point
Is the threat from Russia missing from the Russia meddling probe? There's much being made about the Trump administration's possible ties with Russia. But the bottom line is Russia's effort to influence American democracy. Do the President and his aides care enough to take action before voters go back to the polls?