Jeff Mackler That Russia paid the Taliban financial bounties to kill 18 U.S. and “coalition” soldiers in Afghanistan is in dispute to say the least. Both Democrats and…
Marco Carnelos The impacts of coronavirus have been tremendous everywhere, but in the Middle East, the situation seems to be assuming the features of a perfect storm. In…
Alissa J. Rubin and Farnaz Fassihi After years of increasing tensions that nearly led to war, Iran has moderated its approach to the West, shifting from a policy…
Michael T. Klare Energy analysts have long assumed that, given time, growing international concern over climate change would result in a vast restructuring of the global energy enterprise….
Sami Adnan Since October of 2019 a massive revolutionary movement has occupied public squares all over Iraq. Rising alongside a wave of explosive international struggles from Chile, to…
Yesterday the U.S. attacked five sites in Iraq and killed 3 Iraqi soldiers of the 19th Division, two policeman and a civilian. The strikes came after some 10+…
[On 3 January 2020, the United States assassinated Major General Qassem Soleimani of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Corps Guard (IRGC). The event was an escalation by the Trump Administration…
Simon Watkins As the deadline for the U.S. to renew its waiver on Iraq importing gas and electricity from Iran approaches later this month, the three key players…
Phil Hearse The Arab Spring of 2011-13 was drowned in rivers of blood, sometimes after being first diverted by the dead-end of political Islam. But in the last…
Patrick Cockburn At the time of his assassination, General Qasem Soleimani’s strategy in Iraq and other countries in the Middle East with large Shia populations had become counterproductive. He is…
Juan Cole The Iraqi prime minister Adil Abdulmahdi late last week requested a meeting with the US government to plan out the departure of US troops, which has…
Oakland Socialist The best – the only – way to build a successful movement against a US war on Iran is to build a workers movement that includes…
Patrick Cockburn Iraqis have a well-honed instinct about approaching danger which stems from their grim experience during 40 years of crisis and war. Three months ago, I asked…
Juan Cole As is always the way with Western colonialists, Trump administration figures such as secretary of state Mike Pompeo gave it out on Friday that the people…
Patrick Cockburn Iraqi security and pro-Iranian paramilitary forces are shooting into crowds of protesters in a bid to drive them from the centre of Baghdad and end six…
Gilbert Achar When in late 2018 the people of Sudan took to the streets demanding an end to Omar al-Bashir’s authoritarian rule, this immediately triggered memories of 2010,…
Robert Fisk Revolutions are like electricity. An electric shock of the most unexpected kind. The victims think at first it must be a powerful wasp sting. Then they…
Zêdan Xelef, translated by David Shook and Bryar Bajalan Non-Broadcast News Today a fire broke out in two tents The families shouted, the children cried and ran bare-assed…
Patrick Cockburn Iraq is poised at a turning point in its modern history as its people wait to see if the government curfew and close down of the…
The current unrest in Iraq began a week ago after a prominent general was removed from his post: Lieutenant General Abdul Wahab al-Saadi was the great Iraqi military…
Celebrated Iraqi playwright and actor Yusuf al-Ani (1927-2016) is at the center of the latest issue of the Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World, which has…
Mustafa Habib. The process to install new governors in Basra and Baghdad is proving almost as chaotic as the formation of the federal government. In Basra last weekend,…
Hamidreza Azizi Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi issued a decree July 1 obliging the overwhelmingly pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) to fully integrate into the Iraqi armed…
Adrian Searle. Whitechapel Gallery, London: The Beatles play a presidential funeral while Nimrud’s Palace is rebuilt with sardine cans in this angry, thought-provoking journey though time. Michael Rakowitz’s…
Bob Dreyfuss. Here’s the foreign policy question of questions in 2019: Are President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, all…
Jeffrey St. Claire. At the close of the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was denounced as a ferocious villain for ordering his retreating troops to destroy Kuwaiti oil…
Bijan Khajehpour. The reimposition of US secondary sanctions has compelled Tehran to look for ways to reduce their negative impact. According to Iranian officials, one of the strategies is…
Cyril Widdershoven. The U.S. sanctions on Iran are not biting yet, as global oil markets are well supplied. In the coming weeks, Iranian crude volumes should show a…
Patrick Cockburn. Changes of government in Iraq are often fiercely disputed and frequently violent. When the monarchy was overthrown in 1958, the young King Faisal II was machine gunned in…
Maysam Behravesh. The messages from Tehran are stark. On October 1, Iranian forces fired six missiles at Daesh positions in eastern Syria. The weapons landed within three miles…
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