Category: Iraq

Kurdish vote reflects Middle East’s ‘existential quandary’

     

  Turkey threatened potentially crippling restrictions on oil trading with Iraqi Kurds on Thursday after they backed independence from Baghdad in a referendum that has alarmed Ankara as it faces… Read more »

Civil society taking fight against violent extremism to ‘a whole new level’

     

  Iraqi security forces have made great progress toward defeating the Islamic State in Iraq. But whether this military success will translate into enduring stability will depend in large part upon the… Read more »

Rethinking Political Islam?

     

  The Qatar quarrel may seem like a tempest in an Arabian teapot, The Washington Post’s David Ignatius writes. But at its heart is the question that has vexed the… Read more »

What comes after ISIS? ‘There is nothing, no plan.’

     

The announcement of the so-called caliphate was a high point for the extremist fighters of the Islamic State. Their exhibitionist violence and apocalyptic ideology helped them seize vast stretches of… Read more »

False Dawn? How (not) to advance Middle East democracy

     

Supporting indigenous democrats would be a more successful approach to promoting democracy in the Middle East than external intervention, especially militarized regime change, says a leading Arab democrat. “Foreign intervention… Read more »

Iraqi Kurdistan: Civil Society at the Crossroads

     

In 2005, Iraq’s Constitution recognized an autonomous Kurdistan region in the north of the country, run by the Kurdistan Regional Government. Today, with a referendum on independence in speculation for… Read more »

Iraqi Kurdistan at the Crossroads?

     

With a referendum on independence in speculation for autumn 2017, Iraqi Kurdistan stands at a crucial political juncture that has global implications. The increasing autonomy of the region promises to… Read more »