Chilcot and a Very British History of Dubious Military Decisions
The publication of the long-awaited report by Sir John Chilcot and his committee on Britain’s involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq proved more surprising and damning than expected. Many of the...
View ArticleChilcot and Opening Old Wounds on WMD Intel
I certainly did not say that I would be proved wrong [about the threat from Iraq’s WMD]. On the contrary, I said with every fibre of instinct and conviction that I believe that we are right -Prime...
View ArticleWhen the Islamic State is Gone, What Comes Next?
To be sure, progress has been slow and halting. But in the past weeks, U.S. commanders in both Iraq and Afghanistan have discussed gains in their respective theaters. In Iraq particularly, U.S. forces...
View ArticleWashington’s Sunni Myth and the Civil Wars in Syria and Iraq
Editor’s Note: This author is writing under a pen name. I know the author’s identity and while his arguments are surely controversial, I am confident in his sourcing and subject matter expertise. I...
View ArticleWashington’s Sunni Myth and the Middle East Undone
Editor’s Note: This is the second of two articles on this topic, the first of which was published last week. There has been some controversy over my decision to allow this author to write under a pen...
View ArticlePost-Sistani Iraq, Iran, and the Future of Shia Islam
During a recent trip to my hometown of Najaf in southern Iraq, I stumbled across a book titled My Leader Khamenei in the personal library of a cleric studying in the Islamic seminary known as the...
View ArticleTurkey’s Kurdish Red Line in Syria and the Fight Against ISIL
Turkey’s military intervention in northern Syria (Operation Euphrates Shield) has raised both hopes and concerns about defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). While some regard it...
View ArticleAfter the Battle for Mosul, Get Ready for the Islamic State to Go Underground
Recent on-the-ground reports from Northern Iraq, as well as statements from senior U.S. and Iraqi commanders, clearly telegraph the next phase of the ongoing campaign against the Islamic State: the...
View ArticlePolitics, Population, and Hydrocarbons: Preparing for Mosul’s Aftermath
“At once ride for Mosul. The Kurds are devouring one another like wolves. This must be stopped” -Written order by Tahsin Pasha, Ottoman Principal Palace Secretary to Ebubekir Hazim Bey, the newly...
View ArticleWarning Orders: Strategic Reasons for Publicizing Military Offensives
Does publicly announcing an impending military offensive expose assaulting troops to dangers that could be avoided if plans to invade were kept quiet? During all three presidential debates, Republican...
View ArticleThe Bigger Issues at Play: Mosul and the Future of Northern Iraq
Mosul was not the first city to fall to the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but it was its capture that shocked the world into action. Over two years later, the...
View ArticleStabilizing Iraq With and Without the Islamic State
The military campaign to liberate Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has generated much-needed attention to “day-after” scenarios. This includes security arrangements for Mosul...
View ArticlePhases of War and the Iraq Experience
Editor’s Note: This article is the fourth in a series from thinkers at the Center for a New American Security that explores the U.S. military’s phasing construct and the line between war and peace....
View ArticleWaking Up to the Truth About the Sunni Awakening
Martha L. Cottam, Joe W. Huseby, Bruno Baltodano, Confronting al Qaeda: The Sunni Awakening and American Strategy in al Anbar (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2016) The campaign to retake Mosul...
View ArticleAnkara’s Turkmen House of Cards
The Mosul operation has made the predominantly Turkmen city of Tal Afar the latest focus of Turkey and Iran’s sectarian struggle for influence in post-Islamic State Iraq. Turkish President Recep Tayyip...
View ArticleThe Next War in Iraq Needs to be on Corruption
A particularly poignant banner raised at the pro-reform demonstrations in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square stated that “Daesh and corruption are two sides of the same coin.” Iraqis have long recognized the...
View ArticleThe Best Thing America Built In Iraq: Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service and...
When the last pocket of the self-styled Islamic State (ISIL) was eradicated in west Mosul last week, it was fitting that the 36th Commando Battalion struck the final blows. The 36th was the first Iraqi...
View ArticleThe Unvarnished Tyrant: American Soldiers and the Final Months of Saddam
Will Bardenwerper, The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid (Scribner, 2017) More than 14 years after former Army officer Fred Wellman deployed to...
View ArticleIraq’s Competing Security Forces After the Battle for Mosul
In July 2017, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced victory and the end of the “fake Daesh [ISIL] state”. But the prime minister was careful with his wording. He did not want to proclaim...
View ArticleBack on the Playground: Returning to Iraq, Eight Years Later
Revisiting the location of significant moments in your life unleashes a flow of memories. Walking the halls of your high school, you recall your glory days. But you also see how the place has changed....
View ArticleAmerica’s Opportunity in Iraq is Ready to Be Seized
The American contribution to the defeat of the Islamic State (ISIL) has given Washington a new prestige in Iraq. Indeed, the United States has an extraordinarily favorable image in Baghdad. It is hard...
View ArticleMust the War Go On? Let’s Talk About Iraq and the Kurds
The Kurds of Northern Iraq held an independence referendum, Iraqi federal forces seized Kirkuk, and the world wondered if we were on the precipice of another round of what could be described as one...
View ArticleIt’s Too Early to Pop Champagne in Baghdad: The Micro-Politics of Territorial...
“What government?” scoffed Abu Ali, a local Turkmen force commander affiliated with the League of the Righteous, a powerful Iranian-backed Shi’a militia, when we asked whether he took orders from Iraqi...
View ArticleDebunking Myths About the Kurds, Iraq, and Iran
The Kurdish referendum in Iraq has failed spectacularly, despite predictions of beckoning independence. Many who relied on the trope that “statehood was not a matter of if but when” were shocked and...
View ArticleWhat Do We Really Know About the Anbar Awakening?
Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State (Oxford University Press, 2017). In September 2006, Abu Sittar declared the birth of the Anbar Awakening...
View ArticleHarnessing Iraq’s Deadly Array of Armed Groups After ISIL
Editor’s Note: This is the first installment of a series, produced in collaboration with the U.S. Institute of Peace, on the challenges faced by a post-ISIL Iraq. Earlier this week, Iraqi Prime...
View ArticleBaghdad Must Seize the Chance to Work With Iraq’s Tribes
Editor’s Note: This is the second installment of a series, produced in collaboration with the U.S. Institute of Peace, on the challenges faced by a post-ISIL Iraq. Read the first installment here....
View ArticleA New Era Beckons for Iraqi-Saudi Relations
Iraq is witnessing a rare moment of confidence. The defeat of the Islamic State in the country, along with the Iraqi government’s proactive measures to prevent conflict from erupting over territorial...
View ArticleIraq’s Real Weapons of Mass Destruction Were ‘Political Operations’
Editor’s Note: This is the third installment in “Ministry of Truth,” a special series on state-sponsored influence operations. Read the first installment here. Influence operations are by their nature...
View ArticleThe Long Road Back for Iraq’s Minorities
Editor’s Note: This is the third and final installment of a series, produced in collaboration with the U.S. Institute of Peace, on the challenges faced by a post-ISIL Iraq. Read the first and second...
View ArticleIraq Hurtles Toward Another Election: What You Need to Know
Iraq continues to move slowly but surely towards recovery. The defeat of ISIL — despite a small insurgent pocket remaining in Kirkuk and Diyala — and the (relative) success of the Kuwait conference...
View ArticleMore Than Militias: Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces Are Here to Stay
Over the last several years, I have met with commanders and fighters from Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (al-hashd al-sha’abi, or PMF), an umbrella organization of some 50 paramilitary groups, to...
View ArticleSectarianism and the Iraqi Election: Two Potential Scenarios
In 2010, a coalition called al-Iraqiyya, led by a secular Shi’a, Ayad Allawi, and composed of mostly Sunni parties, won a plurality in the Iraqi election. The coalition, however, did not secure the...
View ArticleIraqis Head to the Polls, Frustrated with Corruption and Ethno-Sectarian Appeals
During the height of the battle against ISIL in 2016, the chameleon-like, anti-American, and rabble-rousing cleric Muqtada al-Sadr emerged as a leading proponent of the fight against endemic corruption...
View ArticlePlaying the Long Game in Iraq
Perhaps no other country faces a greater exposure to competition between Iran and the United States than Iraq. So far, inside Iraq, the Trump administration has sensibly prioritized counterterrorism...
View ArticleAuthoritarian Nostalgia Among Iraqi Youth: Roots and Repercussions
When I conducted fieldwork in Iraq in January, one of my research assistants was a 20-year old native of the city of Kerbala. He routinely accompanied me to meetings with prominent members of Hizb...
View ArticleFor Saudi Arabia, an Electric Opportunity in Iraq
Last month, protests broke out in Basra after the Iranian government cut one-third of the total electricity used by Iraq’s second-largest city. Demonstrations against power shortages and other...
View ArticleAn Open Letter to Iraq’s Next Prime Minister, Whoever He Might Be
Congratulations on your selection as prime minister. Or condolences, depending on how you look at it. As in an earlier era in a different land, Iraq is in both its best of times and worst of times. As...
View ArticleAhmad Chalabi and the Great Man Theory of History
Last month was the third anniversary of the death of Ahmad Chalabi. It came only a few days after what was the 20th anniversary of President Bill Clinton’s signing of the Iraq Liberation Act, which...
View ArticleA Failure of Ideas: Revisiting Tony Blair’s Legacy in Iraq
Patrick Porter, Blunder: Britain’s War in Iraq (Oxford University Press, 2018). The case against the Iraq war now looks blindingly obvious. First there was the failure to find weapons of mass...
View ArticleLessons From the Long War: The Role of Information in Counter-Insurgency
Eli Berman, Joseph H. Felter, and Jacob N. Shapiro, Small Wars, Big Data (Princeton University Press, 2018). Goodbye Syria. Goodbye Afghanistan. The Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute –...
View ArticleSummer is Coming: The Crucible for the New Iraqi Government
In Baghdad this month, the mood is generally positive. A new government has been formed and higher oil prices (the recent decline notwithstanding) have given Iraq a stake of cash with which to address...
View ArticleAmerica’s Almost Withdrawal from Syria
American policy in Syria remains confused, even after President Donald Trump ordered a rapid withdrawal of all combat forces from the country. As the U.S. military seeks to retake all territory in...
View ArticleSelf-Deception and the ‘Conspiracy of Optimism’
During his captivity, Lt. Vincent Eyre, one of the few survivors of the annihilation of the British army in Afghanistan in 1842, wrote an account of the disastrous campaign that still serves as a...
View ArticleConfusion in the Pivot: The Muddled Shift from Peripheral War to Great Power...
Former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis explained last January that “great power competition — not terrorism — is now the primary focus of U.S. national security.” Yet less than a year later, when...
View ArticleDo Great Nations Fight Endless Wars? Against the Islamic State, They Might
In his State of the Union Address, President Donald Trump declared that “Great nations do not fight endless wars.” It was a memorable line, met with bipartisan applause that provided the backdrop for...
View ArticleA Life Well Lived: The Warlord’s Legacy
Like many of his friends, I first “met” John Collins online. In early 2004, I was serving as the operations officer of a tank battalion task force in Al Anbar, Iraq. I was mentioned in a New York Times...
View ArticleBattleground or Bridge-Builder? Iraq and the New Regional Order in the Middle...
The Middle East has been in turmoil since 2011 as a result of uprisings that rocked existing political structures in the Arab world, with the declaration of ISIL’s caliphate as its dramatic result. The...
View ArticleThe Problem with the Narrative of ‘Proxy War’ in Iraq
On May 7, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a surprise visit to Baghdad, warning Iraqi officials that the United States had a right to respond to attacks “by Iran or its proxies in Iraq or anywhere...
View ArticleForgetting Allies: Writing the British Out of the History of the Iraq War
Michael J. Mazarr, Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy (PublicAffairs, 2019) Brits have long joked that when Hollywood gets its hands on any World War II...
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