Thirty years after devastating sanctions were first imposed on Iraq, President Donald Trump’s threat of new sanctions is a chilling reminder for average Iraqis of the pain, demoralization and hard choices they experienced amid policies of global economic pressure. In the fallout over the targeted killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Trump said this w
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The changing geopolitical landscape for Iraq’s energy sector Much ink has been spilled over the past week assessing the current confrontation between the US and Iran following the US-ordered airstrike against Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces
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Great gods and sovereigns carved in the rock along an imposing irrigation canal in Faida (Kurdistan Region of Iraq) Exciting discoveries from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: ten new rock reliefs showing the Assyrian king and the gods of Assyria sculpted along a large rock-cut irrigation canal. These are the results of the “Kurdish-Italian Faida Archaeological Project”, co-
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As Sunday’s vote in Iraq’s parliament to expel US troops shows, the US strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani as well as Deputy Commander of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis has cratered US-Iraq relations by putting Iraq in the middle of the unprecedented rise in US-Iran tensions. Sunday’s vote in Iraq is very significant both in
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Iran’s clerical leadership, under “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali HoseiniKhamene‘i, is expected to make rapid, significant, and symbolic responses to the targeted killing in Baghdad on January 3, 2019, of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Maj.-Gen. Qasem Soleimani. It seems unlikely that the Iranian response would initially be to launch a military assault
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