Iraq: "Once More Unto the Breach"? A Conversation with Speaker of Iraq’s Council of Representatives Usama al-Nujayfi

Event Information

January 23, 2014
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM EST

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

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A Conversation with Speaker of Iraq's Council of Representatives, Usama al-Nujayfi

Once again violence has broken out among Iraq’s competing sects, and once again the country appears poised on the brink of civil war. The key Sunni towns of Fallujah and Ramadi have fallen to Salafi terrorists led by al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Iraq’s Sunni community itself seems torn between its fear of the Shi’a-dominated government in Baghdad and its memory of al Qaeda’s brutal excesses. The United States has urged restraint on both sides, but by providing weapons and other support to the central government, has provoked cries of backing the Shi’a against the Sunnis. Meanwhile, Iraq’s neighbors look on in consternation, anxious to avoid another front in the internecine conflict creeping across the region.

On January 23, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings will host Usama al-Nujayfi, the speaker of Iraq’s Council of Representatives for a discussion to help Americans understand the travails of Iraq and the perspective of Iraq’s Sunni community in particular. Mr. al-Nujayfi will discuss the current crisis of Iraq and the role that the United States might play in helping to avoid a further descent into all-out civil war. Saban Center Senior Fellow Kenneth M. Pollack will moderate a question and answer session with Speaker al-Nujayfi following his formal remarks.