Iraq Archives - Page 30 of 139 - Foreign Policy In Focus

Trouble on the Other Side of the Euphrates

by Daniel DePetris | May 16, 2013

Spurred on by the deaths of hundreds of Iraqi civilians each month this year, and by persistent complains about the government’s poor performance and rising authoritarianism, Iraqi demonstrators are now taking matters into their own hands. With ever louder chants of effective governance from certain sectors of the country, what Iraq may be going through is its own version of the Arab Spring movement—smaller and less universal, but equally empowering to those who are in the middle of it.

To Wolfowitz, Iraq Was Just a Chance for the U.S. to Demonstrate Its Power

by Russ Wellen | Apr 11, 2013

Wolfowitz took saber-rattling to the next level.

After Iraq, Climbing Out of the Moral Abyss

by Adil E. Shamoo | Apr 2, 2013

Empires decline due to moral decay from within. Ten years after the invasion of Iraq, our nation is looking at the moral abyss. If lies have delivered us to this place, then only the truth will begin our journey back.

Don’t Blame the Iraq Debacle on the Israel Lobby

by Stephen Zunes | Mar 29, 2013

Right-wing Israeli governments and their U.S. supporters deserve blame for many policies that have led to needless human suffering, increased extremism in the Islamic world, and decreased security, as well as rampant violations of international legal principles. The U.S. invasion of Iraq, however, is not one of them.

America’s Other Dark Legacy In Iraq

by Joy Gordon | Mar 25, 2013

Although the breathtaking violence that attended Iraq’s descent into sectarian nightmare has been well documented in many retrospectives on the 10-year-old war, what’s often overlooked is that by far more mundane standards, the United States did a spectacularly poor job of governing Iraq.

Emphasis Added: The Foreign Policy Week in Pieces (3/22)

by Russ Wellen | Mar 22, 2013

Emphasis, as always, added.

Way Worse Than a Dumb War: Iraq Ten Years Later

by Phyllis Bennis and Co-signatories | Mar 19, 2013

US troops left behind a devastated, tortured Iraq. Our real obligation, to the people of Iraq and the region and the rest of the world, is to transform our government and our country so that these resource-driven wars, shaped by lies and fought for power and for empire, whether in Iran or somewhere else, can never be waged again.

The Dreams and Dilemmas of Iraqi Kurdistan

by Giorgio Cafiero | Jan 24, 2013

Today, Iraqi and Syrian Kurds enjoy unprecedented autonomy from Baghdad and Damascus, and the prospects of an independent Kurdish state are real. Despite the Kurds’ gains, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), led by President Massoud Barzani, finds its semi-autonomous state in northern Iraq at several geopolitical fault lines. Barzani must tread carefully in this volatile region to safeguard the Iraqi Kurds’ interests while pursuing independence from central Iraq.

The Case Against War: Ten Years Later

by Stephen Zunes | Sep 11, 2012

Ten years ago, I wrote a series of articles for the Foreign Policy in Focus website in which I put forth a series of arguments against the Bush administration’s push for a U.S. invasion of Iraq prior to the fateful congressional vote authorizing the illegal, unnecessary, and ultimately disastrous war.

Who Will Govern Syrian Kurdistan?

by Giorgio Cafiero | Aug 31, 2012

Although the prospects for an independent state in Syrian Kurdistan remain dim, unprecedented Kurdish autonomy will likely result from the conflict. The implications extend beyond Syria’s borders as various governments and non-state actors have strong, and often conflicting, interests in the political fate of Syria’s Kurds and the territorial integrity of the Syrian state.