Policy Analysis

January 03, 2018 The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) conducted the independence referendum on 25 September 2017. Of the 72.16 percent of eligible voters in the Kurdistan Region and the disputed territories that cast their votes, 92.73 percent favored separation from Iraq despite vehement opposition both internally and externally. The KRG

December 20, 2017 There have recently been a number of announcements claiming military defeat of the Islamic State in its strongholds of Mosul, Raqqa, and in the Syrian-Iraqi border town of al-Bukamal. And yet new questions arise on the lack of hard evidence of the group’s defeat, in the form

December 4, 2017 Despite being a key ethnic group in Iraq, the Turkmen have been denied legitimate rights since the founding of the modern Iraqi state. Until the fall of the Baath regime, Turkmen areas of residence were subject to discrimination, Arabization, and systematic neglect. After initial excitement and hope

November 29, 2017 As the peaceful phase of the Syrian revolution gave way to a destructive sectarian conflict and terrorist organizations gained prominence, hundreds of thousands of Syrian Kurds fled to Iraqi Kurdistan seeking security and job opportunities. Syrian Kurds welcomed Iraqi Kurdistan’s recent independence referendum, whether they were in

November 7, 2017 Former Kurdistan region president Masoud Barzani miscalculated the potential fallout of the referendum. But political miscalculation by itself cannot explain Barzani’s decision to hold the controversial referendum on September 25th. Rather, the security dilemma in which Iraqi Kurds have lived since the foundation of Iraq in early

November 7, 2017 Watching a televised debate last week on the current tension between Kurdistan and Iraq, Haitham al-Jibouri, an Iraqi parliamentarian from the dominant Da’awa Party, made this proclamation: “The Barzanis violated the rights of the Kurdish people by misusing power and wealth. We will correct all these misfortunes

November 2, 2017 In mid-August, TV screens showed us the strange footage of Islamic State militants and their families travelling in buses protected by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), Hezbollah, and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). Yesterday enemies, today the LAF, Hezbollah, and SAA are keen to move the Islamic

October 16, 2017 The current U.S. administration sees Iran and its rising political clout in Iraq and beyond as a grave threat to its own interests and those of its allies in the Middle East. As a result, Washington has pursued a political strategy that centers on limiting Iran’s influence

October 16, 2017 Fear that Iran is working to build a bridge to the Mediterranean as a path to regional hegemony is hanging over U.S. military thinking and actions in Iraq and Syria. Allowing this suspicion to drive strategy could drag America into an unpredictable conflict that may continue long

September 23, 2017 Seen from Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, U.S. and other foreign pressure to postpone the September 25 referendum on independence is, as Talleyrand once said, “worse than a sin – it is a mistake.” Popular enthusiasm for independence, and moral arguments about Kurdish

August 22, 2017 At a May 4, 2017 meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi was the apparent subject of criticism from Bahrain’s Interior Minister, Rashid al-Khalifa. Khalifa discussed the threat posed by Iraq’s complicity in some elements of the Hashd al-Shaabi (PMU) and Iran providing

August 10, 2017 In a few weeks, the citizens of Iraqi Kurdistan will vote in a historic referendum that will pave the way for the emergence of a fully sovereign Kurdish state. Almost a century has passed with Kurdish national aspirations thwarted by a world order that has otherwise accommodated

August 9, 2017 The Islamic Republic of Iran and the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq maintain cordial relations, and the two neighbors have publicly cooperated in battling the Islamic State (IS). However, this might change soon. The authorities in Tehran are increasingly frustrated with the Kurdish leadership’s decision to hold

August 9, 2017 To wish for change is very hard in a culture that fears transformation. For almost three decades Iraqi Kurdistan has seen the same government, the same faces, and the same ideas, with only the slightest changes in leadership or policies. Who is accountable for the crisis in

For almost a century, Kurdish national aspirations were thwarted by geo-strategic considerations in which regional and international actors were complicit. Kurdish identity was mostly denied, marginalized, and disparaged, with dominant irredentist formulae — Arab, Iranian, and Turkish — stipulated as more suitable alternatives. In the newly independent North Africa of

Since I started researching and polling public opinion in Iraq in 2003, I cannot remember more interesting findings than the ones from the recent nationwide survey conducted a few weeks ago. In general - and as a rule since 2003 - hundreds of previous quantitative and qualitative studies have shown

More than two weeks after the launch of the Muhammad Rasallah II operation, the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs, or al-Hashd al-Shabi) reached the Syria-Iraq border west of Mosul on May 29, 2017. Hadi al-Ameri, leader of the Badr Organization and one of the most influential PMU commanders, announced from the

The emergence and legitimization of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU or Hashd al-Shaabi) represent a continued phenomenon in modern Iraqi history: a weak state and divided armies. For democracy to emerge, the army has to be united and neutral so that it can provide a space for competition among various

On January 27, 2017, President Donald Trump issued an executive order suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, indefinitely prohibiting all Syrian refugees from entering the United States and banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. The executive order unleashed a storm of criticism

As the Nuri mosque, the place where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdad declared his caliphate in 2014, appears in the crosshairs of advancing Iraqi troops, the military defeat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the Iraqi theater looks virtually certain. But as the end of the