Washington, DC – May 16, 2024: On May 13, 2024, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation1 with Iraq and considered and endorsed the staff appraisal. Domestic stability has improved since the new government took office in October 2022, facilitating the passage of Iraq’s first three-year budget, which entailed a large fisc
Read More
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani met last week with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House as part of a weeklong visit aimed at strengthening bilateral relations. The visit occurred amid several historic anniversaries and dangerous developments in the Middle East. April marks the 21st anniversary of the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Since 2003, the U.S.-Iraq rela
Read More
Islamic Anti-Christian Polemics in the West *. By Salah Abdul Razak ** - An Explorative and Typological Approach to a Contemporary Religious Phenomenon Introduction During the last two decades, the new Islamic revival has led to many developments in the field of Islamic religious polemics. The Islamic world confronts many challenges in its relationship with the We
Read More
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is expected to grow modestly in 2024, returning to the low growth that prevailed in the decade before the pandemic. In addition to examining the macroeconomic outlook of the region, this edition of the semi-annual MENA Economic Update, titled Conflict and Debt in the Middle East and North Africa, includes two special sections. The
Read More
Proxy battles: Iraq, Iran, and the turmoil in the Middle East. By Hamza Hadad. Summary The war in Gaza has deepened the Middle East’s fault lines. Iran and its proxies and the US and Israel have engaged in a cycle of tit-for-tat attacks across the region, with the Israeli bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria and Iran’s direct retaliation against Israel threatening to
Read More