The common consensus amongst political scientists on democratization is that it is a long process with an unpredictable timeline for each individual case study. However, with regards to the democratization of Iraq, there is a commonly held belief that it has failed within the span of a decade and...
The role and specificity of policymakers is undoubtedly an influential factor in international relations. Statesmen are first and foremost the policymakers thus actors on the international platform. However, they work under the name and interests of the state. In this sense, the issue of the influence of think tanks...
After months of debates, campaigning and interviews, the US Presidential elections are beginning to tail off. The ostensible incumbents for their respective party’s nomination – Hillary Clinton, the Democrat frontrunner, and Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate – seem to have beaten off dozens of other hopefuls and look...
In his interview with the pan-Arab news network Al-Arabiya, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman outlined his ambitious Vision 2030 roadmap pledging to wean Saudi Arabia off its oil dependency by 2030. The blueprint outlined a huge array of fiscal and economic reforms that will shift the...
The Baath regime, which ruled Iraq through 1968-2003, wasn’t one that was known to have embraced Islam as an ideology or take it as an important source for its values. The regime has most often been described as a secular one of a singular directive approach to establish a...
On December 3, 2015, a Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) regiment of 150 troops and 25 tanks deployed to the Iraqi town of Bashiqa, north of Mosul with the mission to reinforce members of the Turkish military already there training the Kurdish Peshmerga and Hashd al-Wataniforces in the lead-up to...
Statistics show that the private car, when measured against the space it occupies, as the most costly and extravagant mode of transport from land use perspective. This stems from that fact that the average car is only in use for around 10% of time. The private car not only...
On 4 February, a Saudi military spokesman, Ahmed al-Asiri, announced that the Arabian kingdom is ready to send ground troops to Syria to fight against Daesh/ISIS, should the US-led coalition decide to carry out ground operations against the terrorist group.
It is not the first time Saudi Arabia shows its...
Perhaps it was the difficult economic conditions at home, or because of the unpopular decisions that risks making President Putin the man of the elite rather than the man of the people, but what was clear to see in his annual press conference on 17 December was the Putin...
