The 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...
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