Iraq

It went somewhat unnoticed by the international media that US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo paid an urgent unannounced visit to Iraq in early May. The reasoning behind such a rushed visit was an attempt by Washington to renegotiate the terms of cooperation with this Middle Eastern…

In the dead of Christmas night last year, to evade possibly being shot down, US President Donald Trump made a surprise, whirlwind visit to US troops in Iraq. He visited Al Asad Air Base about 100 miles west of Baghdad in Al Anbar province, or about halfway between Baghdad…

Some years ago there was a prop forward in the French national rugby team called Pierre Dospital. This was considered a very appropriate name for him, as it was only one letter away from “hospital”, and given his size, and the demands of his position on the field, this is where…

It’s official. America is looking for ways to re-build its military presence in Iraq as a way to keep an eye on Iran. This was confirmed by none other than the US president, Donald Trump, himself in a recent interview when he said “I want to be able to watch Iran”, adding that “We’re…

The newly launched ‘NATO Mission in Iraq’ has a clear geo-political underpinning to it which aims to disturb the delicate edifice of peace that Russia, Turkey and Iran have been building for last two years or so. Although the new mission has been announced at a time when the US…

As expected, following the victory in the Iraqi parliamentary elections of the Muqtada al-Sadr bloc, together with pro-Communist parties, a serious political crisis has broken out in the country, which has yet to form a government. The winning parties campaigned on a platform based on…

Like a local mafia that breaks car windows by night and repairs them by day, the United States has enlisted its Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) partners – namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates – to “rebuild” in Iraq in the wake of the defeated…

The latest developments in Iraq have put the US in another dilemma. It wants out of that country, but can’t actually leave because everything which is going on there is the product its own US foreign policy. It is affected by everything that goes on there, it can’t just walk…

Far from the public eye, carefully blanketed by mainstream media silence, the holy city of Karbala saw this early November its numbers of inhabitants swell by an estimated 17 million and counting. From all four corners of the world…

On one hand, the United States is demanding that Iranian-backed militias “leave” Iraq, claiming the fight against the self-titled “Islamic State” (IS) is over. On the other hand, the US and its European partners are still funneling…

While the US and European media provided little explanation as to how militants from the self-titled Islamic State (IS) managed to appear, expand and then fight for years against the combined military power of Iraq, Syria…

Notwithstanding the overwhelming vote the Kurdish referendum for independence received, there is no gainsaying that regional circumstances were far from suitable for such an undertaking, let alone its materialization. Iraq has…