Foreign Policy Blogs

Tag Archives: Iraq

Demographics in Anbar

This RAND study finds that 20 percent of eight-year olds, and 40 percent of all twenty-year olds in Anbar province are fatherless. Moreover, half of all households have reported losing at least one family member. This is, obviously, a tragic story, but also presents a whole host of problems for Iraqi society and governance. The […]

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Read these!

1) Iraq’s security forces must be depoliticized, and the Sons of Iraq must be better integrated into the national defense, writes former Mayor of Tel Afar Najim Abed Al-Jabouri. 2) Russia’s abstinence-based strategy on HIV is failing miserably. 3) Cutting down rows of olive trees won’t help the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. 4) If we’re so […]

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So, about the surge …

It’s simple to say that the surge fixed Iraq. John McCain basically ran for President on that notion. But it’s also overly simplified, with the biggest caveat being, frankly, that Iraq isn’t “fixed.” It’s perhaps the quintessential transitional state, emerging from a decades-long brutal dictatorship, torn asunder by the chaos of the American invasion (and […]

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Iraq Still Exists

And people are still dying there. The fallout from the invasion has definitely not run its entire course yet.

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Voices from the War on Terror

PEN American Center will host what promises to be an engaging, eye-opening, and interesting event (regardless of one’s political ideology) about the U.S.’s so-called war on terror. Reckoning with Torture: Memos and Testimonies from the “War on Terror” will include Matthew Alexander, Jonathan Ames, K. Anthony Appiah, Paul Auster, Ishmael Beah, Don DeLillo, Eve Ensler, […]

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Reality Check

I like it when things line up. Syzygy, they call it. What do Mongolia, Iraq, and Venezuela have in common? (Hint: it’s not oil.) It’s that they have all recently bumped into the sharp edge of resource reality. There is something about the discovery of  valuable resources that make people and countries take leave of […]

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Sovereignty vs. Security

Public opinion is often hard to measure, but it’s a safe bet that assaults on a country’s sovereignty — real or perceived — can quickly inflame that nation’s public opinion.    We see it in a whole range of issues this summer, from the health reform debate in the United States, where opponents raise the […]

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Hundreds in Iraq Rally for Press Freedom

Hundreds in Iraq Rally for Press Freedom

In a country that has seen years of war and experienced a painful shift to democracy, it’s heartening to know that some of the people are using their voices to call for justice for the free press. Articles from several major media organizations show photographs of the peaceful protest. According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), […]

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Punish the Victim? Iraqi Teenage Girl Imprisoned for Her Role in an Attempted Suicide Bombing

Amidst what appears to be a confusion of evidence and a disregard for both the pressures faced by girls sold into marriage and the inherently dual victim-perpetrator status of children in conflict situations, Rania Ibrahim, a 16-year-old Iraqi teenage girl, has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for an attempted suicide […]

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Locked Down in a Tough Position

Locked Down in a Tough Position

One of the greatest challenges facing the United States, its NATO allies, and the Afghan government is how to handle what is sure to be a rising prison population.  The US/NATO troop surge has been followed by more aggressive efforts to take back Taliban-dominated areas and these missions have inevitably led to an increase in […]

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An American Face from the War in Iraq

There are few photos of the Iraq war as poignant and iconic as that of Marine Lance Corporal James Blake Miller. The photo, known as the “Marlboro Marine”, was taken by Los Angeles Times photojournalist Luis Sinco. The war-weary Marine with a cigarette dangling from his mouth in  the battle of Fallujah in 2004 is […]

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Politicians Don't Decide What Information Illuminates a Story

U.S. President Barack Obama reversed a significant decision this past week. He decided to go back on his promise to release photographs of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan that were taken a few years ago. The popular sentiment among the more conservative-minded might be that Obama is well within his right as Commander-in-Chief to do […]

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The New Yorker's Jon Lee Anderson on the Middle East

Jon Lee Anderson is a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of the “The Fall of Baghdad” and “The Lion’s Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan”. Anderson is an accomplished journalist who has reported on Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran extensively. His most recent work for The New Yorker is entitled Can Iran Change?. I had […]

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The Media's Record of Life Lost in War

Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip A. Myers was only 30 years old when he died in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He was thousands of miles from his home in Hopewell, Virginia when an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) wounded and killed him. But as fate would have it, his death and return to his family in the […]

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Afghanistan and Iraq Through the Eyes of a Veteran War Correspondent

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