Faysal ItaniVerified account

@faysalitani

Dep. Director at Center for Global Policy - Islamic geopolitics + non-state actors. Prof. of Mideast politics. Motorcyclist. Parrot owner. faysal@cgpolicy.org

Washington, DC
cgpolicy.org/author/faysalc…
Joined October 2012
236 Photos and videos Photos and videos

You may also like

·

Tweets

You blocked

Are you sure you want to view these Tweets? Viewing Tweets won't unblock

  1. Pinned Tweet
    Jan 8

    In this piece for I argue: - Killing Soleimani should be judged by its specific goals, not one's views of 'maximum pressure'. - Iran is geopolitically strong but has few wise escalation options. -The US need not retaliate - it's made its point.

    3 replies 31 retweets 90 likes
  2. 2 hours ago

    'For people who think of foreign relations as Iran versus the U.S. or Putin vs. Xi Jinping, it can be hard to grasp just how little govts sometimes matter in the Middle East' by 's The Middle Eastern Problem Soleimani Figured Out

    6 retweets 31 likes
  3. Retweeted
    Jan 10

    Happy to get into swing of things with the great / team. In a new graphic we show the current US/ escalation pattern didn't start just now in it goes back over a year to the start of the "maximum pressure" campaign.

    1 reply 8 retweets 23 likes
  4. Jan 10

    It's all good. We're making our mark on the world in many other ways.

    Lebanon loses right to vote at U.N. General Assembly
    5 replies 2 retweets 10 likes
  5. Jan 10

    This really is very good.

    The U.S. Congressional Research Service may have set some sort global speed-writing record by issuing a 22-page background briefing on the death of Qassem Soleimani, Iranian retaliation, and its regional…
    2 replies 7 retweets 41 likes
  6. Jan 10

    Of course.

    ISIS draws parallels between the US-Iran fight and the fight between the Byzantine and Persian empires in the 6th century, which it says Muslims later defeated them both (in today’s Levant, Iraq and Iran).
    2 replies 1 retweet 5 likes
  7. Jan 9

    Fred Hof puts the soleimani killing in historical context and examines whether it provides an opening for broader deescalation.

    5 retweets 14 likes
  8. Retweeted
    Jan 9

    1. In my new piece for , I try to take a step back and discuss what the Soleimani killing tells us about American exceptionalism, anti-imperialism, and whether the weaker party is necessarily more moral:

    22 replies 228 retweets 548 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
  9. Retweeted
    Jan 9
    Replying to

    There’s a 10 year statute of limitations so the 2008 visit doesn’t count. They have to investigate if he went more recently. But it’s also all based on whim. You can read all about it here

    2 replies 2 retweets 6 likes
  10. Jan 9

    I'm actually genuinely curious how he gets out of that one. Pretty much the only rigorously applied law in Lebanon.

    2/ Judge Ouiedat will also follow up on his 2008 visit to Israel and incidents of "economic normalisation" with Israeli businesses. Lebanese citizens are banned from visiting Israel as the two states are still technically at war.
    Show this thread
    4 replies 3 retweets 10 likes
  11. Retweeted
    Jan 8

    Iraq's Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia, whose rocket attacks on US troops precipitated the surge of US-Iran tensions, joins the deescalation bandwagon. Tells its followers to be "patient." At this time "passions must be avoided to achieve the desired results"

    20 replies 163 retweets 219 likes
  12. Jan 9

    Travel ban? The guy snuck out of Japan in a cello case.

    Japan’s justice minister responds to ’s Wednesday press conference, in which he lambasted the Japanese justice system. The day before, Japan’s ambassador to Lebanon called on the Lebane…
    1 reply 6 retweets 32 likes
  13. Retweeted
    Jan 9

    - on New Year's Day, and the end of the first week of 2020 - if he worked on the Arab world and the wider Middle East

    2 replies 12 retweets 40 likes
  14. Retweeted
    Jan 8

    Episode 102: Revolution & Counter-Revolution with Joseph Bahout

    5 retweets 13 likes
  15. Jan 8

    Good thread.

    I’m not an Iran expert. But I am a military analyst. When I see the impact points of Iran’s strike on Asad air base, I don’t see purely symbolic strikes designed to avoid casualties, as some have speculated. The strikes…
    Show this thread
    1 reply 6 retweets 12 likes
  16. Jan 8

    Mabrouk !

    We are very excited to announce that has joined us as the Middle East Portfolio Manager.…
    1 reply 12 likes
  17. Retweeted
    Jan 8

    Who is Ismail Qaani, the New Commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force?

    4 retweets 6 likes
  18. Retweeted
    Jan 8

    This piece by is a really well-done and sober analysis of the circumstances around the killing of Iran’s Qassem Soleimani:

    1 reply 33 retweets 82 likes
  19. Retweeted
    Jan 8

    Iran's retaliation for Soleimani's death offers Trump an off-ramp from this cycle of escalation. Will he take it? My story in on last night's attacks in Iraq with , , , and

    10 replies 25 retweets 44 likes
  20. Retweeted
    Jan 8

    It’s absolutely bonkers as an Arab to watch how many Americans appear to self-loathe America. You guys should try moving to and living under some of the tyrannical regimes you’re idolizing.

    362 replies 2,147 retweets 8,321 likes
  21. Jan 7

    Alright then.

    Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched.…
    2 replies 8 likes
  22. Retweeted
    Jan 7

    Fascinating piece by on how Trump's first ever public comments on Iran when he was only 34 can help us understand the Soleimani strike:

    5 replies 22 retweets 72 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
  23. Jan 7

    If there are no US casualties and this is the extent of Iranian retaliation, then the US does not need to escalate. Iran can fire the missiles. Killing Soleimani was a far bigger blow.

    135 replies 496 retweets 1,690 likes
  24. Jan 7

    They're off to a great start.

    Masih Alinejad isn’t just an Iranian journalist and activist. She’s on the U.S. government payroll and works for the increasingly “rabidly pro-Trump” Voice of America. Media outlets that host her should tell us that
    4 replies 3 retweets 10 likes
  25. Jan 7

    This.

    Zooming out, the Soleimani killing is but the most recent episode in a slowly escalating region-wide confrontation. Iran had apparently made the decision to evict us from Iraq and recent events, as well as the balance on the ground, suggested they would've succeeded either way.
    Show this thread
    1 retweet 9 likes
  26. Retweeted
    Jan 6

    American forces will be departing from Iraq, and soon, for this is an irreversible trajectory. The American public has gone beyond ‘Iraq exhaustion’ to ‘Iraq revulsion’. Coupled with a presidential inclination for disengagement the departure is poised to become an election issue.

    5 replies 36 retweets 82 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
  27. Retweeted
    Jan 5

    Guys honestly.. You can always find an official saying whatever you want to.. and vast majority of time it is either personal or ranting or boredom or having nothing to do with actual decisions.. Please stop publishing ‘unidentified as not authorised to speak’ genre

    Top Pentagon officials were stunned after President Trump chose the harshest option available following Iran-led violence in Iraq and ordered the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, New York Times says
    1 reply 8 retweets 45 likes
  28. Jan 6

    I thought the policy discourse had bottomed out with the Turkish invasion of Syria. How young and naive I was...

    6 replies 6 retweets 58 likes
  29. Jan 5

    I think this is an excellent point.

    1-Let’s not kid ourselves, was lost a long time ago & US been on borrowed time there While a forced US exit, would be a strategic setback, politically, ⁦…
    Show this thread
    2 replies 3 retweets 18 likes
  30. Retweeted
    Jan 5

    Elizabeth Warren won't say one bad word about Soleimani, calls him "a government official, a high ranking military official," then pivots to Ukraine.

    1,064 replies 724 retweets 1,764 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
  31. Retweeted
    Jan 5

    The Iraqi parliament voted to “ask” the Iraqi government to end the security agreement with the US, end the presence of foreign troops & the international coalition’s mandate against ISIS, even in Iraqi air space “for whatever reason.” Passing the buck to the gov. Not binding.

    10 replies 360 retweets 491 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
  32. Retweeted
    Jan 5

    The killing of Suleimani is an extraordinary moment even by Middle Eastern standards. His death came amid real & unprecedented challenges to Iran, and he died still trying to deal with them. Which makes it doubly significant. My new piece in :

    22 replies 227 retweets 381 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
  33. Retweeted
    Jan 4

    What is going on?

    Dear , The USA has disrespected your country, your flag, your people. 52% of us humbly apologize. We want peace with your nation. We are being held hostage by a terrorist regime. We do not know how to escape.…
    6 replies 5 retweets 15 likes
  34. Retweeted
    Jan 4

    1. Initially I was on the fence, but the more I consider different scenarios, the more the original alarmist takes seem even more wrong than I first suspected. The WW3 stuff is obviously silly, but even the risk of "mere" war seems increasingly unlikely

    206 replies 1,326 retweets 3,756 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
  35. Jan 3

    Scientists find evidence that Venus has active volcanoes

    2 retweets 6 likes
  36. Jan 3

    Including my thoughts.

    7 retweets 17 likes
  37. Jan 3

    Thread.

    1/ Why did Iran militarily escalate in the Gulf lately? Shooting down a US drone, seizing tankers, bombing Saudi oil infrastructure? It wanted to internationalise the conflict. The Strait of Hormuz is where most of the world's shipping transits. The US chose not to go there.
    Show this thread
    5 retweets 10 likes
  38. Jan 2

    I think it's more like killing General McArthur, if he had fought a 40 year world war for the survival of the republic. Along America's borders.

    "From a military and diplomatic perspective, Soleimani was Iran’s David Petraeus and Stan McChrystal and Brett McGurk all rolled into one," writes. …
    3 replies 22 retweets 95 likes
  39. Jan 2

    Well, live by the gun die by the gun. Though I have more questions than answers.

    7 replies 19 retweets 101 likes