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Iraqi Kurds Suffer Major Setback
Masoud Barzani was born in 1946 in the Mahabad Republic, the only modern Kurdish state that has ever existed. It lasted one year in northern Iran, declared under Soviet military occupation at the end of the Second World War. Months after the Soviets withdrew Iran crushed the nascent republic and executed its leaders in early…

Curious Alliances Taking Place Amid Mosul Operation
As it always happens, a major military offensive in a country where multiple interests collide and converge, alliances take place. Some new are formed and some old suffer a set-back. Iraqi army’s operation in Mosul, the erstwhile capital of the Islamic State in Iraq, has produced the same kind of impact. As such, whereas it…

Greatest Threat to Peace in Iraq is Not ISIS – It’s Donald Trump
“Fake facts!” exclaimed a senior Iraqi official in exasperation as he pointed to photographs online allegedly showing the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Kirkuk, orchestrating the Iraqi government retaking of the city last month. He said that in reality the picture, tweeted by a Kurdish leader as evidence of Iranian hegemony, dates from 2014. The…

The Dueling Ayatollahs – Khamenei, Sistani, and the Fight for the Soul of Shiite Islam
The protests that rocked Iran earlier this year barely affected how most countries engage with the world’s only Shiite theocracy. But in neighboring Iraq, they have forced a much deeper debate that goes to the heart of the country’s political future — and that of the whole region. With protesters’ demands ranging from lower egg prices…

Will Bibi’s War Become America’s War?
President Donald Trump, who canceled a missile strike on Iran, after the shoot-down of a U.S. Predator drone, to avoid killing Iranians, may not want a U.S. war with Iran. But the same cannot be said of Bibi Netanyahu. Saturday, Israel launched a night attack on a village south of Damascus to abort what Israel…

Will the Syrian-Iraq Border Battle Trigger a Wider War?
“Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty and social disaster. Nobody cares a bit about human rights, including the right to life.” – Vladimir Putin The sands are shifting in the Syrian war, from Aleppo province down to the southeastern Al-Tanf border crossing into Iraq. With the Astana4 safe zones…