The spread of coronavirus, Covid-19, globally means more populations in lock downs while slowing major economic activities, but for Iraq, it goes beyond the normally expected health and economic crises. The country’s political economy is designed in a way that any economic lose might lead to conventional conflict over resources. The pandemic dramatically decreased revenues of I
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Schools and universities in Iraq will remain closed throughout next week as part of government measures to combat the spread of coronavirus from neighboring Iran. Iraq's five-months-old protest movement which has been demanding overhaul of the political elite also faces a major scale-down following a new government call to stop all kinds of congregations which risk the outbr
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Iraqi refugees come to terms with settling in the country responsible for making Iraq uninhabitable after the 2003 invasion. When “Dilan” left Iraq to come to Texas in 2012 as a refugee, he was struck by how he could head to the grocery store or walk down a street without looking over his shoulder to see if someone was following him. “I felt safe,” says the thir
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A new proxy war is brewing in the Middle East, and its consequences may be bigger than those in Yemen, Libya and Syria Any reader of these columns is familiar with the landscape - an intergalactic Star Wars struggle between three blocks of regional powers, as the US retreats in disarray. The struggle for power is played out in one sandbox after another - fir
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Recent protests in Iraq have demanded an end to rampant state corruption, the removal of foreign influences from Iraqi politics and the proper provision of public services. State-Society Relations in Iraq The causes of these demands are partially shaped by the myriad militia groups that began to emerge at the end of the Ba’athist era in 2003. They took on greate
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