US Iraq Research Articles

Remembering the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait: Anniversary journalism’s role in collective memory and the State’s pursuit of ontological security

Seeking to broaden collective memory research beyond major nations and high-profile events (e.g., the Cold War and September 11), this study explores how Kuwaiti newspapers memorialized Saddam Hussein’s August 2, 1990, invasion of Kuwait. By tracing the evolution of commemorative narratives over three decades and observing how they resonate with the state’s political context, the role of the Kuwaiti press in shaping collective memory is shown. Additionally, given the shifts in Kuwait’s foreign policy—from initial animosity toward Iraq to a strategic partnership—prompted by leadership changes and the 2003 US–Iraq War, this study examines how commemorations reflected and solidified Kuwait’s evolving identity. In this context, the study evaluates the role of journalists as active participants in the state’s continuous pursuit of ontological security, which focuses on establishing a stable and recognized national identity alongside physical security.

War on Aisle 5: Casualties, National Identity, and Consumer Behavior

A growing body of research argues that external threats from the international system strengthen ethnocentrism and authoritarianism, personal values anchored in national identity. We evaluate a necessary implication of this argument, that these shifting values drive change in broader social behaviors. Our focus is revealed value change in a non-political setting: American consumers’ choice of supermarket brands that symbolize national identity. Our empirical analyses leverage US counties’ quasi-random exposure to US Iraq War casualties to identify the effects of local casualties on the weekly market share growth of “American” supermarket brands. We analyze weekly supermarket scanner data for a representative sample of over 1,100 US supermarkets and 8,000 brands. During 2003-2006, the weekly market share of American brands grew relative to non-American brands in casualty-exposed supermarkets. Variation in share growth across customer demographics is consistent with reactions to external threat. We rule out alternative mechanisms including partisan cues, other product characteristics, and animosity towards other countries. These findings strengthen IR’s theoretical microfoundations by showing that international politics can reshape values enough to change broader social behaviors.

The Archives of Saddam Hussein's Baʿth Party and the Politics of Remembering and Forgetting the Baʿthist Era in Iraq

On August 31, 2020, a US military plane returned the archive of the Baʿth Party Regional Command, more commonly known as the Baʿth Party Archive, to Iraq from California, where it had been held by Stanford University's Hoover Institution Library and Archives since 2008. A leftover issue from the 2003 Iraq War, it had been static as a policy matter for years, but appeared on the agenda of the US–Iraq Strategic Dialogue in summer 2020. Mustafa al-Kadhimi's emergence as the compromise choice for prime minister by Iraq's competing factions that May facilitated this development. Kadhimi, a journalist and human rights activist by background, was one of the cofounders with Kanan Makiya of the Iraq Memory Foundation (IMF), a nongovernmental organization that followed in the wake of the US-led invasion in 2003 as a US Department of Defense contractor. The origins of this relationship dated to the aftermath of the 1990–91 Gulf War. Shortly after arriving in Iraq in 2003, and responding to the rumor that looters were headed toward the mausoleum and museum of Baʿth Party founder Michel ʿAflaq, Kadhimi and Makiya by chance discovered the Baʿth Party Archive underneath the structure, which was adjacent to the Baʿth Party's headquarters in Baghdad.

Religion and cognitive processing of trauma among newly returned US Iraq and Afghanistan veterans

ABSTRACTReligion can provide a powerful meaning-making framework that promotes adaptive processing of potentially traumatic events. However, spiritual strain or distress might be associated with maladaptive perceptions of the meaning of possible traumas. These theoretical propositions have yet to be tested in the empirical literature (to our knowledge). This study examined associations between adaptive and maladaptive religious factors – labelled “seeking religious support” and “spiritual distress” and cognitive processing of trauma in a sample of 90 Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans recently returned from deployments. Results indicated that seeking religious support was positively, and spiritual distress was negatively, associated with adaptive processing but neither were linked with maladaptive meanings of trauma in the presence of known covariates (posttraumatic stress, depression, combat exposure, and social support). These findings demonstrate that religious/spiritual beliefs and behaviours may affect how trauma is adaptively processed in the months following war-zone deployments.

Subgroups of US IRAQ and Afghanistan veterans: associations with traumatic brain injury and mental health conditions.

U. S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are known to have a high prevalence of traumatic brain injury (TBI), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression, which are often comorbid and share many symptoms. Attempts to describe this cohort by single diagnoses have limited our understanding of the complex nature of this population. The objective of this study was to identify subgroups of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans (IAVs) with distinct compositions of symptoms associated with TBI, PTSD, and depression. Our cross-sectional, observational study included 303,716 IAVs who received care in the Veterans Health Administration in 2010-2011. Symptoms and conditions were defined using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision codes and symptom-clusters were identified using latent class analysis. We identified seven classes with distinct symptom compositions. One class had low probability of any condition and low health care utilization (HCU) (48%). Other classes were characterized by high probabilities of mental health comorbidities (14%); chronic pain and sleep disturbance (20%); headaches and memory problems (6%); and auditory problems (2.5%). Another class had mental health comorbidities and chronic pain (7%), and the last had high probabilities of most symptoms examined (3%). These last two classes had the highest likelihood of TBI, PTSD, and depression and were identified as high healthcare utilizers. There are subgroups of IAVs with distinct clusters of symptom that are meaningfully associated with TBI, PTSD, depression, and HCU. Additional studies examining these veteran subgroups could improve our understanding of this complex comorbid patient population.

PTSD and depression symptoms are associated with binge eating among US Iraq and Afghanistan veterans

ObjectiveUS Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression are at increased risk for obesity. Understanding the contribution of health behaviors to this relationship will enhance efforts to prevent and reduce obesity. Therefore, we examined the association of PTSD and depression symptoms with binge eating, a risk factor for obesity, among Iraq/Afghanistan Veterans. MethodIraq/Afghanistan Veterans were assessed at intake to the VA Puget Sound Healthcare System-Seattle post-deployment clinic (May 2004–January 2007). The Patient Health Questionnaire was used to measure depression and binge eating symptoms, and the PTSD Checklist-Military Version assessed PTSD symptoms. ResultsThe majority of the sample (N=332) was male (91.5%) and Caucasian (72.6%), with an average age of 31.1 (SD=8.5) years; 16.3% met depression screening criteria, 37.8% met PTSD screening criteria, and 8.4% met binge eating screening criteria. In adjusted models, those meeting depression (odds ratio (OR)=7.53; 95% CI=2.69, 21.04; p<.001) and PTSD (OR=3.37; 95% CI=1.34, 8.46; p=.01) screening criteria were more likely to meet binge eating screening criteria. Continuous measures of PTSD and depression symptom severity were also associated with meeting binge eating screening criteria (ps<.05). ConclusionPTSD and depression are common conditions among Iraq/Afghanistan Veterans. In the present study, PTSD and depression symptoms were associated with meeting binge eating screening criteria, identifying a possible pathway by which psychiatric conditions lead to disproportionate burden of overweight and obesity in this Veteran cohort. Tailored dietary behavior interventions may be needed for Iraq/Afghanistan Veterans with co-morbid obesity and psychiatric conditions.

Violent behaviour and post-traumatic stress disorder in US Iraq and Afghanistan veterans

Violence towards others in the community has been identified as a significant problem for a subset of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. To investigate the extent to which post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other risk factors predict future violent behaviour in military veterans. A national, multiwave survey enrolling a random sample of all US veterans who served in the military after 11 September 2001 was conducted. A total of 1090 veterans from 50 US states and all military branches completed two survey waves mailed 1 year apart (retention rate = 79%). Overall, 9% endorsed engaging in severe violence and 26% in other physical aggression in the previous year, as measured at Wave 2. Younger age, financial instability, history of violence before military service, higher combat exposure, PTSD, and alcohol misuse at Wave 1 were significantly associated with higher severe violence and other physical aggression in the past year at Wave 2. When combinations of these risk factors were present, predicted probability of violence in veterans rose sharply. Veterans with both PTSD and alcohol misuse had a substantially higher rate of subsequent severe violence (35.9%) compared with veterans with alcohol misuse without PTSD (10.6%), PTSD without alcohol misuse (10.0%) or neither PTSD nor alcohol misuse (5.3%). Using multiple regression, we found that veterans with PTSD and without alcohol misuse were not at significantly higher risk of severe violence than veterans with neither PTSD nor alcohol misuse. There was a trend for other physical aggression to be higher in veterans with PTSD without alcohol misuse. Co-occurring PTSD and alcohol misuse was associated with a marked increase in violence and aggression in veterans. Compared with veterans with neither PTSD nor alcohol misuse, veterans with PTSD and no alcohol misuse were not significantly more likely to be severely violent and were only marginally more likely to engage in other physical aggression. Attention to cumulative effects of multiple risk factors beyond diagnosis--including demographics, violence history, combat exposure, and veterans' having money to cover basic needs like food, shelter, transportation, and medical care--is crucial for optimising violence risk management.

Mental health and somatic symptom severity are associated with reduced physical activity among US Iraq and Afghanistan veterans

ObjectiveEnsuring that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans engage in adequate physical activity is essential to prevent metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, and promote psychological well-being. Identifying factors associated with physical activity in this population will yield areas for targeted interventions aimed at increasing activity. MethodCorrelates of meeting physical activity recommendations (≥150min/week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity [MVPA]) were examined in Iraq/Afghanistan veterans assessed at intake to VA Puget Sound Healthcare System's post-deployment health clinic (May, 2005–August, 2009; N=266). ResultsThe majority were male (94.3%) and Caucasian (70.7%), with an average age of 29.8 (SD=7.3) years. Participants engaged in a median of 180 weekly MVPA minutes. Among those meeting (59%) and not meeting (41%) recommendations, median weekly MVPA minutes were 540 and 0, respectively. In multivariate regression models, higher levels of depression (p=.042) and somatic (p=.018) symptom severity were associated with significantly decreased odds of meeting physical activity recommendations. ConclusionOverall, physical activity engagement among Iraq/Afghanistan veteran VA patients was above the level specified in national recommendations. Those with higher depressive and somatic symptoms were less likely to meet physical activity recommendations and may benefit from targeted physical activity promotion interventions.

Red Team: How the Neoconservatives Helped Cause the Iraq Intelligence Failure

This article explains how flawed intelligence assessments of Iraq's aluminum tubes became ‘Exhibit A’ in the Bush administration's case for the Iraq War. The assessments seem to have begun as a consequence of a debate within the administration over US Iraq policy in early 2001. The neoconservatives wanted intelligence that would help them argue for regime-change. A WINPAC ‘Red Team’ analyst analyzed the tubes using the same methodology as 1976's infamous Team B panel, which skewed intelligence to support neoconservative policies. The Red Team analyst erroneously concluded the tubes were for a nuclear program thus countering assessments that they had a non-nuclear purpose. After the attacks of September 11 and President Bush's embrace of regime-change, the Red Team tubes assessment began to become the official position of the Intelligence Community. In September 2002, the President cited the assessment publicly, forcing the Intelligence Community to adopt it as the majority position in the Iraq NIE. ‘Exhibit A’ in the case for war was thus the product of a Red Team and, as such, was essentially propaganda masquerading as intelligence.

Modelling International Tourism Demand for the Caribbean

This paper provides models of international tourism demand for four destination countries (the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica and St Lucia) in the Caribbean region, where visitor arrivals are mainly from Canada, Germany, the UK and the USA. The authors use a less restrictive econometric technique – the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test – to test for cointegration among the variables in the tourism demand equations. The empirical results from the bounds test indicate the existence of a unique long-run relationship between tourist arrivals, per capita real income, tourism prices and transport costs. The estimated results show that changes in tourists' income, tourism prices, travel costs, the 9/11 2001 terrorist attacks on the USA and the 2003 US–Iraq War significantly affect tourists' travel decisions. The results also show that tourism demand for Caribbean destinations is highly income elastic in both the short run and the long run, but relatively price inelastic in both periods. The price inelasticities suggest that if policy makers and/or tourism stakeholders increase the prices of the tourism products and services, this would not decrease the number of tourist arrivals proportionally but would increase total tourism receipts or revenues. Overall, the CUSUM and CUSUMSQ stability tests reveal that the parameters of the international tourism demand models are stable and, as such, they can be used for policy analysis and forecasting.

Prevalence Estimates of Combat-Related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Critical Review

The aim of the present study was to provide a critical review of prevalence estimates of combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among military personnel and veterans, and of the relevant factors that may account for the variability of estimates within and across cohorts, including methodological and conceptual factors accounting for differences in prevalence rates across nations, conflicts/wars, and studies. MEDLINE and PsycINFO databases were examined for literature on combat-related PTSD. The following terms were used independently and in combinations in this search: PTSD, combat, veterans, military, epidemiology, prevalence. The point prevalence of combat-related PTSD in US military veterans since the Vietnam War ranged from approximately 2% to 17%. Studies of recent conflicts suggest that combat-related PTSD afflicts between 4% and 17% of US Iraq War veterans, but only 3-6% of returning UK Iraq War veterans. Thus, the prevalence range is narrower and tends to have a lower ceiling among combat veterans of non-US Western nations. Variability in prevalence is likely due to differences in sampling strategies; measurement strategies; inclusion and measurement of the DSM-IV clinically significant impairment criterion; timing and latency of assessment and potential for recall bias; and combat experiences. Prevalence rates are also likely affected by issues related to PTSD course, chronicity, and comorbidity; symptom overlap with other psychiatric disorders; and sociopolitical and cultural factors that may vary over time and by nation. The disorder represents a significant and costly illness to veterans, their families, and society as a whole. Further carefully conceptualized research, however, is needed to advance our understanding of disorder prevalence, as well as associated information on course, phenomenology, protective factors, treatment, and economic costs.

The body of war and the management of imperial anxiety on US television

This essay considers representations of wounded US Iraq veterans on US broadcast television, in order to determine the role entertainment media are playing in the management of imperial relations in Iraq. Covering reality programs such as The Montel Williams Show and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and the scripted dramas, Bones and Without a Trace, it demonstrates how the presentation of soldier-suffering effaces the Iraqi victims of US violence and channels public anger and frustration towards emotional support for US troops. Ultimately, such representations produce a form of empty empathy that disables attempts to translate the fact of human vulnerability into a basis for non-military political action.

The US ‘Surge’ as a Collaborative Corrective for Iraq

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Said in June 2005. BBC News, ‘The state of Iraq's security forces’, 11 December 2006. 2. Dan Murphy, ‘New commander, new plan in Iraq’, Christian Science Monitor Online, 11 February 2007. 3. Yahoo News and AP, ‘Report finds Iraqi government precarious’, 23 August 2007. 4. Mark Kukis, ‘At Baghdad's ground zero’, Time Online, 19 January 2007. 5. BBC News ‘Iraqi forces “ready by mid-2007”’, 3 December 2006. 6. Scott Johnson, ‘Ministers of death’, Newsweek International, 13 November 2006, pp. 38–40. 7. Hamza Hendawi, ‘Brittle bond: Iraqi sheikh joins US fight’, Yahoo News, 13 October 2007. For instance, tension has resulted from US soldiers shooting CLC militiamen unknowingly. One militiaman commented, ‘Such acts will create a gap between us and the Americans. We are trying to restore security in the area while they are killing us.’ Katarina Kratovac, ‘Knowing the enemy difficult in Iraq’, Yahoo News, 8 October 2007. 8. For instance, one former Sunni insurgent belonging to the Fursan Al-Rafidain (Knights of Mesopotamia) presently allied with Americans commented, ‘At the beginning, people saw it as an occupation which had to be resisted. But then they saw that the Americans were working in the interests of the people.’ BBC News, ‘Sunni militia brings calm to Baghdad area’, 18 December 2007. The ‘interests of the people’ can be taken to mean using the US as leverage to strengthen Sunni positions against Shia parties and militias. 9. Petraeus thus argued: ‘There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq, to the insurgency in Iraq. Military action is necessary … but it is not sufficient.’ Haaretz, ‘US general: Force alone won't end the violence in Iraq’, 8 March 2007. 10. Gates thus argued: ‘The issue that we're all trying to figure out is how best do you get the Iraqis to reconcile their differences … this is not going to be solved by the military. It has to involve political reconciliation in Iraq, among Iraqis. We're basically buying them time.’ Steven R. Hurst, ‘US troop deaths show Sunni resilience’, Yahoo News, 18 March 2007. 11. Diaa Hadid, ‘Iraqi gov't pledges to disband Sunnis’, Yahoo News, 23 December 2007. 12. For instance, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez commented that the US effort in Iraq is presently a ‘nightmare with no end in sight’ because of US political misjudgements rather than its military policies. Steven Komarow, ‘Ex-general: “No end in sight” in Iraq’, Yahoo News, 13 October 2007. 13. Joe Klein, ‘Operation Last Chance’, Time, 9 July 2007, pp. 19–23. See p 22. 14. Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul-Qader Al-Obeidi summed this up well regarding the Sunni communities vis-à-vis Al-Qa'ida: ‘The awakening movement was a response to Al-Qa'ida in Iraq trying to prevent Sunnis from entering the political process … The Sunni's response was an uprising, represented by the awakening group. Now that Al-Qa'ida has largely been marginalised in certain areas, Sunnis are entering the political arena. We will see a definite change soon because there is nobody now standing between them and the rest of the Iraq people.’ Bradley Brooks, ‘Sunni fighters need political role’, Yahoo News, 23 December 2007. 15. Larry Diamond, James Dobbins, Chaim Kaufmann, Leslie H Gelb and Stephen Biddle, ‘What to do in Iraq: A Roundtable’, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2006. 16. Larry Diamond, James Dobbins, Chaim Kaufmann, Leslie H Gelb and Stephen Biddle, ‘What to do in Iraq: A Roundtable’, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2006. 17. Darrin Mortenson, ‘America's new Shia Allies’, Time Online, 11 October 2007. 18. Robinson, op. cit., p. 147. Note that these summary points largely mirror those of Robinson's except for his fifth point. 19. Mark Urban, ‘Fragile success for US Iraq surge’, BBC News, 10 December 2007. Additional informationNotes on contributorsMatthew B. ArnoldMatthew B Arnold is a postgraduate research student in the Department of International Relations, London School of Economics.

Iraqi adolescents: Self-regard, self-derogation, and perceived threat in war

A year into the 2003 US–Iraq war, how were adolescents in Baghdad faring? Conflict-related events typically lower psychological well-being; in contrast, investment in and protection of threatened identities should lead to self-esteem striving and, presumably, better well-being. How threatened do Iraqi adolescents feel? Is their self-esteem related to their sense of threat? Do age, religion, ethnicity, and gender alter the link between perceived threat and self-esteem? We use data from 1000 randomly selected adolescents living in Baghdad during July 2004. Iraqi adolescents reported high levels of threat; those feeling more threatened reported higher levels of self-esteem. Social background correlates with both self-esteem and perceived threat, but controlling for social background does not eliminate the relationship between self-esteem and perceived threat. We interpret our results in light of theory and research concerning social identity, mortality threats, and war trauma.

Presidential policies and the road to the second Iraq war: from Forty One to Forty Three

Contents: Introduction, John Davis. The View from Washington: Presidential decision-making: three models and the road to war with Iraq, Denise Von Hermann The ideology of war: the neoconservatives and the hijacking of US policy in Iraq, John Davis Legislativea executive relations and US policy toward Iraq, Louis Fischer Infighting in Washington: the impact of bureaucratic politics on US Iraq policy, John Davis. The Diplomatic Perspective: Personal diplomacy and US policy toward Iraq, Robert Pauly, Jr Coalition diplomacy and Iraq, Tom Lansford Post-Gulf war, post-Desert Fox, and the post-Saddam phase: US policy against Iraq and its impact in the Middle East, Mohammed A. El-Khawas. Military Dimensions: From containment to the Bush doctrine: the road to war with Iraq, Cameron G. Thies Low intensity conflict with Iraq: 1991a 2003, Douglas M. Brattebo Iraq and the evolution of American strategy, Steven Metz Conclusion: getting there: the road to and the aftermath of the second war in Iraq, John Davis Index.

International News Agencies and the War Debate of 2003

A stratified random sample of articles about the debate from 29 January 2003, to 18 February 2003, leading up to the US–Iraq conflict was selected from six news agencies – AP, Agence France Presse, Reuters, Xinhua, ITAR-TASS and Inter Press Service. US official sources were cited most frequently by all agencies except IPS and ITAR-TASS, which showed a nationalistic bias in its sourcing. Neither the western news agencies nor Xinhua's sourcing patterns were nationalistic, and their coverage was more balanced than IPS and ITAR-TASS. However, the non-western news agencies presented significantly more non-western viewpoints in their coverage of the pre-war debate.

Thinking Through Networks and Their Spatiality: A Critique of the US (Public) War on Terrorism and its Geographic Discourse

Conventional thinking about war is encumbered by an inappropriate geographic paradigm that conceptualizes “targets” in terms of fixed latitudinal/longitudinal locations. This paper reconceptualizes terms such as “war” and “targets” to recognize intangible problems and develop appropriate counter‐terrorist strategies. This requires geographic inquiry focused on spatiality, not on location. We frame our discussion about terrorist networks (Al‐Qaeda in particular) in terms of understanding a network's sense of place and sense of space. The former “places” a network's meeting and recruiting grounds; the latter clarifies the operational dynamics of a network across space, at different scales, from the body to the neighborhood, to the region, and across nations. We argue that the roots of terrorism lie in conditions of disenfranchisement in particular types of places, understanding, however, that the socio‐cultural fabric of a terrorist network such as Al‐Qaeda evolves across space as well as time. Counter‐terrorist strategies should target neither people nor places but rather the conditions that give rise to terrorism; further, “intelligence” should focus on network dynamics, beyond particular people in particular places. We draw from network theories (specifically actor network theory and network approaches in economic sociology) to unravel network dynamics, and we draw from the literature on spatiality to interpret such dynamics in space, over time. We advocate a non‐military engagement with terrorism on both moral and strategic grounds; here we focus on the strategic dimension, the value of which has received scant attention.

Defending against Iraqi missiles

Although Iraq probably possesses only a small fraction of the longer-range al-Hussein missiles it had in 1991, the relatively few missiles still in Iraqi hands can be primitively armed with chemical and biological weapons (CBW). With regime change a declared US goal this time round, Saddam may be more inclined to use CBW against both military targets and civilian populations. Particularly worrisome to US planners is the risk that Israel could retaliate against Iraqi missile strikes, based on the assessment that Israel’s regional deterrence strategy could not bear the restraint it practiced in 1991. Thus, the effectiveness of US and Israeli defences against the Iraqi missile threat will be a key strategic factor in any US–Iraq war.

A new refugee crisis in Iraq?

There has been little discussion in policy circles about the risk that any US–Iraq conflict could result in an exodus of refugees from Iraq and a significant level of internal displacement. At worst, such developments might pose challenges to the security of neighbouring states and act as a factor complicating the US military campaign itself. While these risks are hard to quantify at this stage, what is clear is that the mechanisms and resources needed to respond to worst-case refugee scenarios are currently not in place.

Iraq under siege: the deadly impact of sanctions and war

Part 1 The roots of US/UK policy: US Iraq policy -motives and consequences, Noam Chomsky US policy on Iraq in the 1990s, Naseer Aruri Iraq - the impact of sanctions and US policy, Phyllis Bennis, Denis Halliday bleeding a nation, John Pilger. Part 2 Life under sanctions: raising voices - the children of Iraq, 1990-1999, Kathy Kelly killing a country and a people, George Capaccio targets-not victims, Barbara Nimri Aziz. Part 3 Documenting the impact of sanctions: the impact of sanctions on the environment and health in Iraq, Dr Huda S. Ammash sanctions, food, nutrition, and health in Iraq, Dr Peter Pellett. Part 4 Myths and realities: ten myths about sanctions, Voices in the Wilderness the media's deadly spin on Iraq, Rania Masri, Ali Abunimah one Iraqi's story, Howard Zinn the hidden war, Robert Fisk. Part 5 Activist responses: signature ad against sanctions, Edward Said et al sanctions as biological warfare, Noam Chomsky building the movement to end sanctions, Sharon Smith. Appendix: key organizations working to end sanctions.