Over at the Huffington Post (via AP), Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Brian Murphy raise an interesting point regarding the political crisis currently gripping Iraq’s fragile parliamentary patchwork. They note leadership in Iran is desperately clinging to their power proxy in Baghdad – Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, and his factional allies in the Iraqi National Alliance. Their […]
In his farewell tour of greater Mesopotamia, the Defense Secretary remarked that the US and Iraq would have to negotiate the terms of any American presence, while admitting that he had dreamed up at least a couple scenarios that might keep American forces in Iraq, perhaps indefinitely.
By this time next year, the United States should have withdrawn all of its troops from Iraq. We can hope that this long, bloody chapter in American military history may be at an end.
While overseeing the departure of American forces in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, warned Sunday that a new Iraqi government may still be months away from formation and said that an extended impasse could create demands for a new election to break the deadlock, which has existed since March 7th. The New York Times published an excellent piece regarding statements made by Odierno yesterday, at headquarters. […]
We all know the broad strokes. The state of Iraq has been politically rudderless since March 7 elections for the Council of Representatives failed to produce a clear coalition winner. Although former PM Ayad Allawi’s Iraqiya slate won a two-seat victory over Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition, they didn’t score with sufficient […]
More than 50 people were killed and some 115 wounded when a suicide bomber struck a Baghdad recruiting center for the Iraqi Army.
Although there are hopeful signs that coalition talks between Iraq’s two major Shi’a blocs, the question of leadership remains squarely focused on Prime Minister’s Nouri al Maliki’s incumbency…