All Policy Analysis by Sardar Aziz

In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, signs of Chinese soft power are increasingly visible to residents of an area with longstanding ties to the United States.

A handful of personalities have consumed all the country’s political oxygen, dashing hopes for a truly pluralistic ecosystem and requiring creative engagement from U.S. officials.

The Maliki audio leaks highlight the inherent fragility of Iraqi politicians while offering an insight into the dynastic politics of Iraq.

China’s presence in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan is expanding rapidly against a backdrop of China’s growing presence across the Middle East.

While Iraq’s new electoral law did have some successes, the reforms it attempted to achieve will only be able to come to fruition if the Iraqi electorate is convinced that elections can make a tangible difference in their lives.

The concept of the civilizational state helps explain how Iran is challenging the liberal international system and weakening Iraqi sovereignty.

Optimism on Biden in Iraqi Kurdistan is driven by historical ties. But contemporary political views on U.S. policy in the region may shape the Biden presidency in new, less comfortable ways.

The Iraqi government has recently released a white paper detailing economic and financial reforms meant to lift the country out of its current economic straits. The White Paper for Economic Reforms—written by the Crisis Cell for Financial and Fiscal Reforms, established in May to manage the country’s fiscal reforms—largely proposes

One of the most common terms used among Iraqi elites to criticize the current state is the concept of the non-state, or al-ladaula. Anyone closely observing Iraq’s political affairs cannot avoid reading and hearing this word multiple times a day, given its prominent usage on TV debates, Whatsapp chats, local

When I moved into new accommodations in the centre of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, the lift announcements in the apartment tower were in Chinese, followed by Kurdish, Arabic and English. This multilingualism was surprising but positive; it was a clear sign of the

As Iraqi Kurdistan faces several severe crises simultaneously, it must evaluate the benefits and limitations of a popular call to reform and decentralize its current model of government. The Kurdistan regional government’s (KRG) current outdated model of governance will likely prove to be ineffective in handling these major challenges, revealing

On November 23, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Iraq for an unannounced trip that included a visit to meet with the President of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) Nechirvan Barzani. In the published White House remarks of the meeting, one sentence asserted a sense of confidence in the

While Kurdish parliamentary elections are scheduled for September 30, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) is facing a number of crises—political, economic, and more broad social issues. These range from inadequate services, a dysfunctional bureaucracy, political fragmentation, widespread distrust among political elites, strong regional intervention, and more. The impact of these

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