The implementation of federalism in Iraq is a divisive political issue that has coloured relations between the central government and both the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Iraq’s individual provinces. The form and substance of power-sharing arrangements, and the extent to which sovereign authority should be devolved, have been in constant dispute since the establishment of the post-2003 ...Read more >

The first round of this Iraqi and U.S strategic dialogue that took place on June 11, 2020. It was held via video teleconferencing between Iraqi officials – led by Senior Under Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Abdul Karim Hashem Mostafa – and U.S. officials – led by U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale. The result led to progress in several important ways. The dialogue took place because Iraq now has a functioning government that focuses on both ...Read more >

Iraq's unicameral legislature, the Council of Representatives (COR), voted to approve Prime Minister Mustafa al Kadhimi’s government program in May 2020 and finished confirmation of his cabinet in June, ending a months-long political vacuum. Al Kadhimi has billed his government as transitional, pledging to move to early elections as soon as they can be held safely and fairly. He has acknowledged and begun acting to address the demands of protestors, whose mass demonstrations paralyzed ...Read more >

A clear-eyed look at the current situation in Iraq suggests that 2020 could represent a turning point for U.S. policy. Recent events have rendered the future of U.S. military forces’ presence in Iraq uncertain. Iran, Russia, and China are competing for influence in Iraq’s economic, political, and security sectors. Setbacks in Iraq-U.S. relations should be viewed in the larger regional and global context: American interests will suffer if strategic competition in Iraq is abandoned. ...Read more >

In this Perspective, we assess the possible strategic risks associated with U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq and recommend policies to help the United States meet its strategic objectives in the Middle East. As of early 2020, the United States has several thousand military personnel in Iraq providing direct combat assistance to Iraqi security services and to U.S. forces in eastern Syria. Following the targeted killing of Iranian Major General Qassim Suleimani in January 2020, the Iraqi ...Read more >

What is the future direction of US imperialism? The strategic choices being debated by ruling elites are framed by the disaster in Iraq. And while the exact outcome remains unclear, one thing is perfectly clear, the US has been defeated in its Middle East invasion.To properly judge the US war we must remember its original goals. A compliant pro-US government, a totally privatized economy run mainly ...Read more >

Throughout 2019 in Iraq, WFP continued to work to meet the needs of vulnerable people, across the context of the humanitarian, development and peace nexus. WFP distributed food and cash-based assistance to displaced persons and refugees in camps, helped people rebuild their lives through work and training opportunities, and provided healthy meals to children in schools. In 2019, the last year of the Transitional Interim Country Strategic Plan, WFP reached 711,639 people, 85 percent of the ...Read more >

A dozen years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the United States remains involved in a handful of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies around the globe, including in Iraq and ...Read more >

Events in Iraq and Syria during October – not least the desperate battle for Kobane and a spate of executions in Iraq’s Anbar province – have demonstrated the limitations of aerial attack by the coalition of Western and Arab states in ...Read more >

Today, one of the most serious threats that have engulfed a large portion of the Middle East is the emergence of the Sunni Muslim extremist group, infamously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), or Islamic State of ...Read more >

There are times the US does not need an enemy in going to war. It poses enough of a threat to itself without any foreign help. The current debate over ground troops in Iraq and Syria threatens to be yet another case in ...Read more >

It is a big mistake if we think that ISIL is a disease ,It is really a symptom of the Real disease which is Sunni’s suffering and frustration since 2003 Actually ISIL has a deep contradiction with its Sunni ...Read more >

At the end of July 2014, a crude oil tanker began the long journey to a buyer in South Korea— the first unrestricted sale, outside of Canada, of unrefined American oil since the ...Read more >

These questions have become more, not less, important over the last few months. Two months into the air campaign, it has had some effective but seems to be doing too little, too slowly, failing to have the impact needed in ...Read more >

In recent weeks, Sunni militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)1 have swept across northern Iraq, pushing aside the beleaguered Iraqi security forces (ISF), many of whom have simply dropped their weapons and ...Read more >