When tribal chieftains met last week in a small town north of Baghdad to see what they should do with the protests that have gripped the country's south and capital city, one key question emerged: how will Iran respond if the uprising fails?
“They (...)
The growing discontent in Iraq, fuelled by gross state failure, has led to a political crisis. The protests entered their second month this week, with no signs of abating.
Protesters have been in the streets of Baghdad and across Iraq's southern (...)
Weeks of demonstrations in Baghdad and across Iraq's largely Shia-populated southern cities have pitted protesters against the police, local governments, and the country's ruling elites, and there is no question they are shaking the sectarian (...)
From the moment anti-government protests engulfed many parts of Iraq earlier this month, Iranian officials and media were quick to condemn the uprising as orchestrated by the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, Iran's arch enemies.
The (...)
By many standards, the image of Iraqi Shia leader Muqtada Al-Sadr with Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that surfaced last week should have been an extraordinary sight for ordinary Iraqis and Iranians and many beyond the two neighbouring countries.
The (...)
When two oil tankers were damaged in a suspected attack in the waters between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iran last week, Iraq's Ministry of Foreign affairs shyly condemned what “has happened” to the vessels.
In a statement, the ministry also (...)
When former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein launched a full-scale incursion into Iran in 1980, he was hoping to take advantage of the chaos after the Islamic Revolution to stifle Iran and to assert Iraq's role as the new dominant power in the Arabian (...)
It is a rough time in the Middle East. An accelerating drive to counter Iran could lead to a military showdown between the United States and its Arab allies and the Islamic Republic.
Iraq, Syria and Yemen, where pro-Iran armed groups are operating, (...)
When former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein launched a full-scale incursion into Iran in 1980, he was hoping to take advantage of the chaos after the Islamic Revolution to stifle Iran and to assert Iraq's role as the new dominant power in the Arabian (...)
In his election campaign trail, US President Donald Trump was a vocal anti-war candidate. At a Republican Party debate, Trump called the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq a “big, fat mistake.”
Trump repeatedly criticised his predecessors George W Bush (...)
It is a rough time in the Middle East. An accelerating drive to counter Iran could lead to a military showdown between the United States and its Arab allies and the Islamic Republic.
Iraq, Syria and Yemen, where pro-Iran armed groups are operating, (...)
In his election campaign trail, US President Donald Trump was a vocal anti-war candidate. At a Republican Party debate, Trump called the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq a “big, fat mistake.”
Trump repeatedly criticised his predecessors George W Bush (...)
In the banner headline of a landmark report released by the International Crisis Group in March 2005, the world-famous think tank asked, how much influence does Iran have in Iraq?
Two years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, Iran's influence in the (...)
It is telling that some historical accounts have it that the world's first electrochemical battery may had been invented in Babylon, and it has been suggested that the cells might have been used to electroplate metal or as an igniter.
The Babylon (...)
The fraud that provoked demands for a hand recount of Iraq's last parliamentary elections only underlined the country's turbulent balloting. The official results in last year's elections gave Iraq's ruling cliques an absolute majority of the vote on (...)
In the banner headline of a landmark report released by the International Crisis Group in March 2005, the world-famous think tank asked, how much influence does Iran have in Iraq?
Two years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, Iran's influence in the (...)
US President Donald Trump's classification of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group has sparked fears among many Iraqis that their country may emerge as a potential field of confrontation between Tehran and Washington.
The (...)
Last week, a Shia member of parliament caused uproar when he praised former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and commended his notorious ruling Baath Party's social policies.
Faiq Al-Sheikh Ali, who spent years in exile after joining the Shia uprising (...)
The new battlefront in Iraq these days is the increasingly crowded field of state and privately-financed satellite television channels. They are the most efficient media that can reach millions of Iraqis who rely largely for their news and (...)
When an overcrowded ferry capsized in the Tigris River in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul last week, prime minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi flew in person to the grieving city to see for himself the unfolding tragedy.
After touring a hospital and morgue (...)
Despite record numbers of refugees crossing borders, with some 68.5 million people forcibly displaced last year, the UN has disclosed new data showing that only 55,700 of them were able to be resettled in 2018.
In a scathing report released last (...)
“If Allah wants, it will come back tomorrow. If Allah wants, it will be a little longer. It is just a matter of time,” boasted a defiant German recruit of the Islamic State (IS) terror group.
“If it belongs to Sharia [Islamic law], then there is (...)
Backed by a US-led International Coalition, the Iraqi security forces have now almost completely dismantled the Islamic State (IS) group that had earlier seized vast tracts of land in Iraq and Syria and declared a “Caliphate.”
US-backed Syrian (...)
Among the world's most unstable regions, none is faced with more serious geopolitical risks than the long arc stretching from the Maghreb to the Arabian Gulf.
For decades the Middle East has experienced upheavals that will change the face of the (...)
The United States has a long history of changing regimes in other countries. Its latest intervention was in Venezuela last week when it closely coordinated, if not directed, an unknown opposition leader's attempt to overthrow president Nicolás (...)
