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.
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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
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Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday he would reshuffle his cabinet to appoint technocrats to replace ministers appointed on the basis of political affiliations. He gave no details about the timing of the change or what positions would be affected, but promised decisions soon including ones related to fighting corruption. "Out of my responsibility ... to lead th
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Iraq is losing many of its minorities, and it’s on the brink of losing most of its cultural diversity. Despite this tragic situation, minorities are denied adequate protection and support by the Iraqi government, while the international community is failing to take any serious measures to protect them. They have been abandoned to their own fate in a country expelling its popula
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The buffaloes that Jabbar Hassan farms moved too slowly across the marshland. They looked tired and too thin; seven had already died because it was too hot and the marshes where they live are becoming too dry. A severe drought is impacting on the Jabayesh marshes, where Hassan and his family live in southern Iraq; Jabayesh lies about 95 kilometres east of Nasiriya, the capital
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