#Iraq

On 12 May, Iraqis head to the polls to choose their representatives for Parliament. In an environment influenced by the four-year conflict with the Islamic State (ISIS) and the fragmentation of politics, these elections are a critical test. The context Although most of the territories lost to ISIS have been recaptured, the factors that led […]

Backed by Russia’s President Putin and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the Assad regime has recently made a bloodbath of Eastern Ghouta in Syria. During the past week, in the attacks on the rebel-held enclave near Damascus, upwards of 500 were killed, among them more than 120 children. On February 24, the UN Security Council finally managed […]

  Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi has been hailed in many western circles as the unifier of Iraq but in reality, he is merely another sectarian leader, who murders and threatens his own people in order to hold a failed state together utilizing brute force.  To the contrary, Kurdistan’s Prime Minister Nichervan Barzani is […]

A large policy discussion is taking place between the US government and the UN, refocusing, and in many cases slashing US contributions to UN agencies to adjust closer to current US foreign policy approaches. One example of an extensive refocus is with a new policy to put funding and attention towards religious minorities in Iraq. […]

The reality of conflict in this New Year is that there must be a reckoning to remember the forgotten from the last few years and honour those lost to human rights atrocities. What is worse than fake news, is no news, and with so little attention being paid to some of the most mutilated and […]

In the past few weeks, forces fighting to completely liberate Syria and Iraq from ISIS have claimed that their mission is accomplished in ousting the fascist army from their countries.

The Kurdistan Regional Government is presently calling upon the international community including the United States, the EU and the UN to intervene in order to bring the Central Government in Baghdad to the negotiating table: “The restrictive policies adopted by Baghdad against Erbil are in violation of Iraq’s obligations and responsibilities under international and humanitarian […]

Given that the last strongholds for ISIS (known as Daesh in the region) in Raqaa, Syria and Mosul, Iraq have fallen, it is likely the group in its current territory-based form will gone by the end of 2017.  Only weeks ago, Daesh was allowed to leave central Syria before the Syrian Army closed the 5-kilometer gap […]

In the last week there have been mass graves discovered in Iraq. There is little detail on who the 400 people found buried are, why they were executed or what group they belonged to, but just that they were victims of ISIS and their location. This story and many linked to the atrocities in Iraq […]

The Economist published a piece this week on the actions by Iraqi forces against Kurdish interests in the Kurdish region of Iraq after a referendum for independence from Iraq took place recently. With dwindling ISIS control of territory in Iraq and Syria, the interests of those who have allied themselves with Iran, Saudi interests and […]

The Islamic Military Alliance (IMAFT) that was given support by Donald Trump in Saudi Arabia on May 21st, is not only a direct security threat to the European Union, as explained in my previous text, but also a disruption of regional balance. This is very evident in the current crisis around Qatar where Saudi Arabia […]

The focus on an event, movement or death of a leader has always been the rallying cry for many movements that sought to change the status quo. Even in a relatively peaceful country like Canada, the words of a one Lord Durham in a report in the 1800s that suggested the elimination of French Canadian […]