Structural Reforms Key to Meeting Rapidly Growing Population’s Needs With long-overdue financial reforms and an ambitious federal budget, Iraq’s Government continues to forge progress in tackling the challenges it faces, the senior United Nations official in the country told the Security Council today, adding that more efforts are required to address its rapidly growing popu
Read MoreSpeaking in New York during the UN General Assembly, he tells The National his government is committed to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Kuwait “Gaining the trust of the people”. That is how Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani described his biggest challenge since assuming office 10 months ago. While economic woes, climate change and threats to secu
Read MoreTwenty years after the Iraq War began, scholarship on its causes can be usefully divided into the security school and the hegemony school. Security school scholars argue that the main reason the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq was to safeguard the United States against the conjoined threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorist groups. Hegemony
Read MoreA generational shift in geopolitics is creating new possibilities for prosperity in the Greater Middle East The Middle East is often seen as an arena of unending conflict: ambitious regional rivals vie for advantage as restless young people struggle against authoritarian rule and ailing economies. And yet despite the region’s many challenges—from the Islamic Republic of Iran
Read MoreTransitional justice in Iraq is a record of squandered opportunities and compromised institutions. Over five decades, Iraqi society has endured human rights abuses on a wide scale, perpetrated by state and non-state actors. The post 2003 era offered a chance to heal wounds and promote national recovery by adopting policies of transparent judicial accountability, equitable repar
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