Foreign Policy Blogs

Tag Archives: Iraq

The Policy Honeymoon

The Policy Honeymoon

One of the biggest determinants on how the war in Ukraine will progress is closely tied to the amount of support each side in receiving by way of weapons and ammunition. While Russia is seeking allies to supply it with additional arms while pushing their arms producers to renovate and create more tanks and munitions, […]

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No Peace in Our Time

No Peace in Our Time

It was recently revealed that billions of top of the line American weapons were abandoned in Afghanistan when Western forces hastily pulled out of the country in 2021. Adding to the shame of leaving many of their own citizens as well as Afghan allies and TERPS to be brutalised in Afghanistan, the billions in weapons […]

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How to create a terrorist

How to create a terrorist

On August 29th, just two days before the Biden administration’s deadline to complete America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, an unnamed official from the newly established “Over-the-Horizon Strike Cell” authorized a strike from an MQ-9 Reaper drone that killed ten Afghan civilians, including seven children.  This is a tragedy. Individual Americans, myself included, should be ashamed that […]

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Putting some context around negotiating with the Taliban

Putting some context around negotiating with the Taliban

  In early September, the Taliban began to fill cabinet positions for the new, “provisional government” that will attempt to stabilize Afghanistan following America’s military occupation and disorderly withdrawal from the nation. While it is true that the makeup of this cabinet is expected to evolve over time, the initial round of appointments includes some […]

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When Regimes Fester

When Regimes Fester

What is the appropriate way to deal with a country and a government that continuously abuses its own citizens and foreign nationals in 2020? International legal norms are often buried for the sake of political expediency so local elections can be won, but why do local elections depends on whether or not we acknowledge the […]

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Preserving Humanity Through Language and Culture

Preserving Humanity Through Language and Culture

A great loss to Syrian and Iraqi culture came from the intentional destruction of many ancient sites and artifacts of those people that came before the modern era, practiced ancient religions and spoke languages that may never be spoken again. With the disappearance of those heritage sites comes new ways of discovering the ethnic and […]

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Operation Vengeance

Operation Vengeance

With the current escalation of tensions between the US and its Allies in the Middle East against Iran and its proxy forces in the region, there have been questions around the legitimacy of actions taken by both sides. With escalating actions against US and Western interests in the Persian Gulf and a final act against […]

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The Olvidados

The Olvidados

The people of Hong Kong know that if they become ignored or forgotten, they will be subject to many rounds of dehumanization followed by oppression and possibly violence. They are very aware of their place in the world, and they also know that in this world we have had genocide and a Holocaust and that […]

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Op-Ed: Why Americans should support the new Iraqi Revolution

Op-Ed: Why Americans should support the new Iraqi Revolution

The Iraqi people want to return their country to its rightful owners.  We should support them in this endeavor.   In recent years, the Iraqi people have suffered immensely under tyrannical regimes.  But now, the Iraqi people have had enough.  They want free elections and they want democratic change.  Furthermore, they are willing to fight as […]

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When we Ignore Human Rights Atrocities…

When we Ignore Human Rights Atrocities…

The recent episode of Amanpour & Co. was interesting on many levels, but below the surface of the discussions it seemed that two separate topics on the show should likely have more connections than what would be observed at face value. The initial discussion between Amanpour and Isha Sesay focused around Sesay’s new book on […]

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The Absence of Justice for Syrians and Iraqis

The Absence of Justice for Syrians and Iraqis

The generation that inherited the world right after the fall of Nazi Germany were in a unique position to teach future generations about how we should address justice after thousands of families lost their relatives during the war. While many former members of Hitler’s government were put on trial at Nuremberg, prosecuted and given their […]

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How We Have Failed Survivors

How We Have Failed Survivors

Various incidents that occurred a few doors down from the largest news team in Canada could be claimed to be the first spark of the MeToo era. A publicly funded radio star in Toronto was using his position to seduce women, and had a tendency to beat them up when alone with them. Despite many of […]

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Special report: The impact of Iraq’s 2018 parliamentary elections

Special report: The impact of Iraq’s 2018 parliamentary elections

On 12 May, Iraqis head to the polls to choose their representatives for Parliament. In an environment influenced by the four-year conflict with the Islamic State (ISIS) and the fragmentation of politics, these elections are a critical test. The context Although most of the territories lost to ISIS have been recaptured, the factors that led […]

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The Shiite Crescent: the Middle East’s Arc of Crisis

The Shiite Crescent: the Middle East’s Arc of Crisis

Backed by Russia’s President Putin and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the Assad regime has recently made a bloodbath of Eastern Ghouta in Syria. During the past week, in the attacks on the rebel-held enclave near Damascus, upwards of 500 were killed, among them more than 120 children. On February 24, the UN Security Council finally managed […]

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Abadi verses Barzani: Who is the true hero?    

Abadi verses Barzani: Who is the true hero?    

  Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi has been hailed in many western circles as the unifier of Iraq but in reality, he is merely another sectarian leader, who murders and threatens his own people in order to hold a failed state together utilizing brute force.  To the contrary, Kurdistan’s Prime Minister Nichervan Barzani is […]

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