Major Economic & Social Issues

WASHINGTON — Iraq is facing major financial pressure, and the war against the Islamic State grinds on. The last thing the country needs is a major political crisis. But that’s exactly what appears to be in the works — unless the United States and Iran work together to help the prime minister avoid it. The latest troubles began on March 31, when Haider al-Abadi, Iraq’s prime mi

Editors’ Note: Brookings senior fellow Kenneth M. Pollack traveled to Iraq from March 9 to March 19 with Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The trip was sponsored in part by the Atlantic Council's Task Force on the Future of Iraq. They had extensive meetings in Baghdad, Sulaymaniyyah, and Irbil with Iraqi, Kurdish, American, and British officials.

IT WAS the story of 2015: not only was the so-called Islamic State (IS) unbearably brutal, but the terror-group was raking in vast sums of money by selling oil, using ingenious makeshift refineries and even exporting their petroleum -- a narrative that fit nicely with their Mad Max image of post-apocalyptic evil. To some, the terrorists' oil wealth was a sign that they were inc