Given the sad state of affairs, I often feel that it’s my responsibility to locate some silver lining that threads through the Iraqi experience. Now, in the midst of crisis, concern and carnage, Iraq’s national soccer team is making another run at the Asia Cup.
Today, speaking from a podium outside a compound that once was once home to his father, the grand ayatollah who had sacrificed his life defying Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship, Muqtada al-Sadr addressed thousands of loyal followers for the first time since he left Iraq in exile in 2007.
By this time next year, the United States should have withdrawn all of its troops from Iraq.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.
Maliki’s political endurance hangs on the support of the Kurdish faction.
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 […]
Here’s a brief outline of news and views from some of the major news outlets regarding the end of the US combat mission…taken from major media both in the States and abroad.
More than 50 people were killed and some 115 wounded when a suicide bomber struck a Baghdad recruiting center for the Iraqi Army.
A day after President Obama vowed no delays to the drawdown of troops in Iraq, synchronized car bombs killed 33 people and five police officers were murdered in Baghdad. In both cases, the attackers hoisted the black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq — a clear sign that al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is […]
We’ve hit an emotional milestone in Iraq. The end is in sight. Major combat is over and the troops are coming home. And we can expect many more of these talks, with appearances planned throughout the month by the president, Vice President Biden and other senior administration officials as they wax eloquent on Obama’s steadfast commitment to ending the war.
President Obama has given formal assurances that U.S. forces in Iraq will drop to 50,000 by the end of the month – a reduction of 94,000 troops since he took office 18 months ago. The remaining troops will form a transitional force until a final U.S. withdrawal from the country by the end of 2011. […]
Nearly five months after national elections were held, Iraq is still without a government. Now, they may be without a football team.
Sectarian conflict bloodies 12 more on final day of Shi’a pilgrimage.
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.
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.