Since 2014, Iraq has been the scene of horrific atrocities committed by the Islamic State (IS, then called ISIL – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) against ethnic and religious communities that it considered anathema to its own hard-line interpretation of Islam.
Although the group was initially not considered...
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...
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...
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 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...
Back in 2002, Osama Bin Laden wrote in a letter addressed to Taliban leader Mullah Omar ‘the media war in this century is obviously one of the strongest methods; in fact, its ratio may reach 90% of the total preparation for the battles’. Three years later, his successor Al...
A number of vital matters stand as obstacles to the independence of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the most important being the internal Kurdish dispute and economic dependence. Kurdish party leaders in Iraqi Kurdistan are well aware of the said difficulties, so they place all the strength in their...
The Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visits Washington on 14th April, 2015. The visit comes, which is the first official visit to the United States, under difficult conditions experienced by Iraq and the entire region is in serious security, political and economic challenges that may leave their scars on...
