Iraq

CNN in its article, “US conducts airstrikes against multiple Iranian-backed militia sites in Iraq,” would report: The US carried out airstrikes on Thursday against multiple Iranian-backed militia sites in Iraq, according to the US Defense Department. The strikes come one day after the US assessed an Iranian-backed group was responsible for a rocket attack on a base where coalition…

News this Thursday of Ayatollah Sistani’s health issues very much put in focus the matter of his succession, and maybe more pertinently yet, Iraq’s ability to weather such a catastrophic loss to the integrity of its institutions. “His Eminence was subjected to a twisting in the left leg that led to a fracture of the thigh bone, and he will be…

After Afghanistan, the Republic of Iraq became the second country in the Greater Middle East to suffer a US military invasion in recent years. Many years have since past, yet war rages on in this country, between the new government and various ethnic and extremist groups, and it has become a staging ground for American military operations in neighboring Syria. Apart from Syria, Iraq borders with Turkey and Iran…

Since October of last year there have been ongoing mass demonstrations in Iraq, which have not yet subsided. As a result of clashes with law enforcement agencies, at least 600 protesters have died and over 16,000 have sustained injuries. Iraq’s President Barham Salih cited these statistics during his speech at the recently finished World Economic Forum…

In 2019, when the US announced to ‘withdraw’ its forces from Syria, it did this only to relocate them to Iraq, which was, as I had written then, to become the main territory for the US military entrenchment in the region against Iran, as also Russia and China. This was decided in the wake of the…

“Iraq caught between a rock and a hard place”, “Iraq between the hammer and the anvil” and similar headlines in Iraqi news reflect public reactions towards recent events within the nation. We are referring here to the assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al‑Muhandis, the deputy head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces…

Ever since Qasim Soleimani’s killing in a US drone strike in Iraq, a momentum for driving the US of the region seems to be building up. Iran, of course, is taking the lead, but the fact that other regional countries might also tap into this drive is what making it a potentially powerful geo-political whirlpool that might consume, partially even if not fully, the US military presence…

By the series of actions in recent months in Iraq and across the Middle East, Washington has forced a strategic shift towards China and to an extent Russia and away from the United States. If events continue on the present trajectory it can well be that a main reason that Washington backed the destabilization of Assad in Syria, to block…

In 1990 Iraq, then under the leadership of its President Saddam Hussein was in dispute with its neighbour Kuwait. The Iraqis accused Kuwait of drilling for oil in such a way as to deplete Iraq’s oil reserves. The Iraqis were incensed by what they perceived as theft of their resources and resolved to take action. Saddam Hussein however…

Keeping to a long standing tradition of hawkishness US President Donald Trump, whose campaign ran on the promises of peace and conflict resolution, ordered the deployment of an additional 4000 troops to Kuwait in view of escalating tensions with Iran in neighbouring Iraq. Just when we thought the region could not possibly become more volatile, the United States choose to light…

Information has come to light that indicts the United States not just for the Soleimani killing but also for the over 300 killings during the Iraqi protests in late 2019. In fact, it can be proven that the United States not only organized the protests but also is responsible for killing protestors as well, hundreds of them…

The murder of the renowned Iranian General Kassem Suleimani, who was in command of Iran’s special operations unit known as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, has effectively become the talk of the week, provoking an unprecedented amount of remarks and comments across the media. Now, let’s examine this situation from…