CFR Daily News Brief Update: U.S. Defense Secretary Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq

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July 23, 2015 Daily News Brief TOP OF THE AGENDA U.S. Defense Secretary Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter arrived in Baghdad on Thursday for an unannounced visit (AP) to Iraq, his first since he took office in February. Carter is not expected to announce major changes in U.S. policy but will meet with Iraqi officials and U.S. military advisers as planning for an offensive (NYT) to oust the self-proclaimed Islamic State from Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, get underway. Meanwhile, the Islamic State claimed responsibility (Reuters) for a suicide attack in Baghdad that killed twenty people on Wednesday. ANALYSIS "The magnitude, duration and timing of the upcoming battle in Anbar remain unknown. However, the battle of Fallujah is surely going to be massive, and it will be the first step to regain the city of Ramadi and the rest of Anbar, as long as the Iraqi forces do not fall victim to the war of attrition within the city’s mined neighborhoods," writes Mushreq Abbas in Al-Monitor.  "New leaders must also embody this new legitimacy by voicing a willingness from the state to address issues like human rights and economic inequality. Without these strategies to complement a military plan, it will be impossible to prevent further violence from animating the region for a long time to come. A Middle East with even more sectarian violence than exists today is the kind of nightmare scenario that the world should do everything to prevent," writes Elie Abouaoun in Foreign Policy. "Ultimately, the way to defeat Islamic State worldwide is to show that it isn't a caliphate after all—and isn't a legitimate utopian Islamic state. Taking its territory is necessary to this goal. But deposing or eliminating the single caliph would go some way to waking Baghdadi's followers from the dream, which is a nightmare for those whom Islamic State has killed, or will kill in the future," writes Noah Feldman in Bloomberg View.