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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Ever since the U.S. signalled through its effective withdrawal from Syria that it now has little interest in becoming involved in military actions in the Middle East, the door has been fully opened to China and Russia to advance their ambitions in the region. For Russia, the Middle East offers a key military pivot from which it can project influence West and East and that it ca
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Barely a month goes by without yet another corruption scandal emerging or developing in Iraq. Whether it be the Barzanis’ industrial-scale corruption in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan or the endemic multi-level corruption in the south it is little wonder that Iraq ranks as one of the very worst countries in the world for bribery and corruption. The last month or so has
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Theoretically, there is no reason why Iraq cannot become one of the leading producers of petrochemicals in the world, given its tremendous reserves of oil and gas. Finally, with a relatively low oil price complex and its crude exports falling in October, Iraq appears to be making some advances on moving its long-stalled push into the petchems sector forward. Earlier this week,
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Iraq has been a key contributor to OPEC liquids growth, with IOCs in southern Iraq having added approximately 1.7–1.8 mb/d (million barrels per day) in the period 2011–16. With renewed focus on medium-heavy sour markets in light of OPEC output policy, geopolitical supply-side disruptions and Asian refining dynamics, Iraq’s future role in oil markets is of critical importance. T
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