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...
Since its declaration of a Caliphate in 2014, the Islamic State (IS) has released a number of publications depicting children participating in rallies, undergoing training, undertaking combat operations and even executing prisoners. Armed groups exploiting children in warzones is nothing new and across Iraq and Syria, many factions have...
Since the fall of Mosul it has sometimes been said by Iraq’s detractors that there is no longer any such thing as the Iraqi security forces (ISF). This is clearly nonsense and those peddling this line are fully aware that it is nonsense. They are motivated by schadenfreude –...
Water draws special interest in research because it is the essence of life. Attention has grown in this subject, perhaps in anxiety about the future of water in our present time due to increased competition for its demand; whether within one country or between countries that share it. Studying...
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...
In countries that have experienced civil wars or transition from authoritarian rule, national reconciliation has been considered a strategic aim to overcome past phases and a starting point towards the construction process.
Every state has its own experience with national reconciliation; however, such experiences do not undermine the importance of...
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...
