I have been recently asked by LinkedIn to contribute writing for the professional social networking site. So, for my first piece I decided to write the following on the worsening situation in Iraq. The piece can be accessed in its entirety here.
The crumbling of government authority in Sunni-dominated areas of Iraq under the alarming onslaught of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) is indicative of a number of geopolitical factors and shifts. Here I will focus on what I believe to be the most significant of these factors; and that is the intensification of the regional proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Over much of the last decade Iran is known to have made significant geopolitical gains in the Middle East. It has solidified its position in Iraq through its influence over successive Shiite-dominated governments there and heavily invested in the country’s south, which is demographically dominated by Shiites.
