By Zuhair Jum’a Al-Maliki
When the Chinese Admiral Zheng He launched his expeditionary fleet of 62 ships in the fifteenth century AD, he could not have imagined that the seven trips he undertook would provide the inspiration for a new war at the beginning of the second millennium. These expeditions...
Each electoral cycle, thousands of people in Iraq, including those with little chance of winning, announce their candidacy to run in the elections. 9043 candidates competed for 328 seats in the previous parliamentary election of 2014, which represents about 27 times the number of available seats. This ratio is...
Al Quds or Jerusalem is a city that captivates you with its beauteous majesty, splendour, and heritage. It has a special place in the hearts of Muslims; its land is holy, and blessed in texts of the Holy Quran. In it lies the Al Aqsa Mosque, the second mosque...
Those who follow closely Saudi and Turkish media these days will witness an intense “undeclared” war of words between the two countries, triggered initially by the change in Turkey's policy of hostility towards Russia in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt of July 2016, and subsequently carried forward...
The electoral system of provincial councils is based on proportional system, which enables many parties to win seats in proportion to their vote share, leading to politically unstable councils. Furthermore, each province is one electoral district, which weakens the dimension of accountability. These two aspects inhibit the ability of...
Iraq began importing gas from Iran in late June 2017 from the oil refinery at Shahr. Iraq has so far - as the most recent buyer of Iranian gas – imported 1.2 billion cubic meters of gas through Iran’s pipeline to Baghdad; thus, Iraq is the second largest buyer...
The electoral system in Iraq has become a controversial issue that has driven demonstrators to call for major reforms to the electoral commission and the electoral law. Last month, parliament approved the new commissioners of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) but the current debates center on whether to...
The Middle East region has faced monumental challenges in recent times. It all started with the political upheavals in Iraq in 2003, affecting as it did the various economic, political and security spheres, and which some observers believe gradually spread into neighbouring countries of the region; leaving in their...
Hussein Darwish al-Adly, a Researcher and Academic.
“Iraq is the epicentre of three nations (the Arab, Iranian and Turkish). Its cohesion implies the unity of the three Middle East nations, while its disintegration certainly means the redrawing of the entire region’s geopolitics. Iraq’s division is forbidden and surviving as a...
The terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2001 and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have exposed the West to notions of extremism never seen before. Whereas many of the conflicts during the Cold War and its immediate aftermath were characterised by political ideologies or ethnic...
