Foreign Policy Blogs

Tag Archives: Iraq

Moving in the Right Direction

Moving in the Right Direction

On September 1, the US mission will get a new name: “Operation Iraqi Freedom” will be reconstituted as “Operation New Dawn” as America’s involvement trends further away from combat duties. Let’s hope Biden’s trip marks the first crack of daybreak.

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Vice President Biden Drops by Baghdad

Vice President Biden Drops by Baghdad

The the Veep made a surprise visit to Baghdad on Saturday in the midst of a political impasse that’s been stacked up Iraq’s national parliamentary election four months ago.

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Political Assassinations Further Turmoil in Iraq

Deadlocked efforts to resolve Iraq’s governing crisis nearly four months after parliamentary elections failed to produce decisive results, are at the heart of this current wave of political violence.

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Top 5 List: Favorite States of the Iranian Government

Top 5 List: Favorite States of the Iranian Government

If Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were to make a list of countries that he loves right now, I would imagine his list would be very similar to this: 5. Iraq: For stealing the spotlight away from Iran. This week, Iran and its nuclear program took the backseat as the American policy makers watched the Iraqi […]

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U.S. Promoting Post-Iraq Democracy Wave?

The Bush Administration used to say that the U.S. was bringing democracy to Iraq and hoping to inspire a democratic wave throughout the Middle East. Let’s agree to accept this uncritically and move forward to ask the following question: Has the recent national election in Iraq inspired the region and emboldened democracy movements? In this […]

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Iraq’s Oil Leases and the World Market

Iraq’s Oil Leases and the World Market

Last month, the Iraqi government held its second round of auctions for its oil fields. Mid-month, seven fields were awarded to international oil companies.  American companies did not win any new leases in this round, but Petronas, a state-owned Malaysian company; Sonangol, of Angola; and Lukoil of Russia and Statoil of Norway did. Petronas and […]

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Share and Share Alike in Iraq

Last week, in a December 22th Wall Street Journal op-ed, Ibrahim Bahr Al-Uluom, a former Iraqi oil minister and current member of the Iraqi National Alliance (a political party), lamented the recent Iraqi oil lease auctions and suggested transferring as much of Iraq’s oil wealth directly to its citizens in the form of shares in […]

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The Year in Review for Energy and Natural Resources

Overview 2009 was all about China. Early in the year, when energy prices crashed due to disappearing demand, oil sank to slightly more than $30 barrel from its mid-2008 high of $147 and natural gas from $14 to around $3 per thousand cubic feet. China, flush with cash, for all practical purposes stabilized the market […]

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Population density in Afghanistan

Where is the COIN strategy going to be centered? A helpful map of Afghanistan’s population density can be found here. Despite my repeated calls to do a better job sealing the border, I’m beginning to think we don’t have nearly enough troops to do even a halfway adequate job. We had a chance to win […]

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Editorial and News dump

2 for 1 on this Friday. We’ll start with the op-eds. 1) The always provocative Gideon Levy, in Haaretz: Let’s face the facts, Israel is a semi-theocracy. 2) Nir Rosen, in the Boston Review, hammers the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. 3) Hassan Haidar, in the Lebanese daily Dar al-Hayat: The Rediscovery of Afghanistan. 4) FP […]

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Wednesday news round-up

1) General Petraeus before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today: Achieving progress in Afghanistan will be hard and progress there likely will be slower in developing than was the progress in Iraq. Nonetheless, as with Iraq, in Afghanistan hard is not hopeless. Wonderful to put to rest any suspicions that the military might be trying […]

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Socialism and Energy

Socialism and energy have a peculiar relationship to each other.  In most countries, no matter who owns the surface land, the subsurface rights to the oil, gas, or (sometimes) minerals, belongs to the national government, and, in theory, the people of the country. The idea did not start with the 20th century: kings and rulers […]

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News from Monday

Copenhagen climate conference opened today. 1) Mayor of Kabul sentenced to four years for corruption. 2) Russia and India signed a nuclear agreement. 3) Iraq election law dispute resolved—for now. 4) Somalis are protesting the brutal bombing last week that killed three government ministers along with medical school graduates and their families. Al Shabbab, the […]

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From Ruins to Reels: The Rebirth of Iraqi Cinema

Because the U.S. post war reconstruction plan in Iraq has been grossly mishandled and has proven to be largely ineffectual, Iraqi artists and filmmakers have decided to take cultural reconstruction efforts into their own hands. Recently in Baghdad, Iraqi filmmakers unveiled the city’s first traveling film festival, showcased at sites where explosions have ruined cultural […]

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On The Future Of War

Stephen Walt is spot on with this blog post. COIN enthusiasts are among the many in Washington who believe American foreign policy must maintain an aggressive missionary aspect. This isn’t really a problem—we should be striving to make the world a better place—but it currently manifests itself in ways that are prone to failure and […]

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