Every year Iraqis hear that their country’s sovereignty is a red line. The speeches are always good. Then you read what has been reported since this summer, and the red line starts to look more like a suggestion. According to a run of reports published between July and October 2026, a Yemeni armed group has …
Who Is Really in Charge in Iraq? The Houthis, the Militias and a Silent State Read More »
On August 21, 2026, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, stood before a room of businessmen at Iran’s embassy in Baghdad and made his pitch: it was time, he said, for Iraq and Iran to stop settling their trade in dollars and start using their own currencies instead. He called dollar dependence “outdated” …
Jihan Saad remembers the night her husband and her brother became two more names on a list that, a decade later, still has no ending. It was 2016, in al-Bu Akkash, a small village in Iraq’s Anbar province, during the operation to retake the area from the Islamic State. Soldiers ordered families out of their …
Iraq’s Vanished: An Empire Built on Enforced Disappearance Read More »
A country does not get captured by one man. It gets captured by a division of labor — a role for the cleric who lends the operation religious cover, a role for the official who lends it state legitimacy, a role for the gunman who lends it a monopoly on force, and a role for …
The Division of Labor: How Khamenei’s Funeral Exposed the Men Running Iraq Read More »
On the first of October 2019, Iraq erupted. The Tishreen Revolution was not a spontaneous outburst, but the culmination of decades of anger. Citizens took to the streets, exhausted by corruption, unemployment, sectarian exploitation, and foreign interference, demanding accountability, reform, and dignity. The uprising transcended sectarian lines, bringing together youth from all backgrounds in a …
Blood and Protest: Iraq’s Tishreen Uprising Six Years On Read More »
The article was originally published in Fair Observer and is cited here for reference.
https://www.ia-forum.org/Content/ViewInternal_Document.cfm?contenttype_id=1&ContentID=16102
The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) have emerged as a crucial military force in Iraq since their formation in 2014, primarily to counter the rise of ISIS. While they initially played a vital role in defending Iraq, today, they pose a significant threat to the country’s internal stability and national sovereignty. Initially conceived as a temporary …
Click the following link: The Collapse of Iran’s Shia Crescent, What’s Next?
The Arab world is currently in the midst of a series of profound political transformations, the scale of which is altering the contours of both regional and global strategies. Perhaps one of the most significant shifts is the evolving role of Iran and its allies, especially within the framework of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) …
Iran’s Allies in Iraq at a Crossroads Amidst Iranian Contradictions Read More »
While Iraq collapses under the leadership of the regressive marja’iyya in Najaf and the corrupt clique in the so-called Coordination Framework, driven by the Iranian Safavid ogre choking Iraq, the Jaafari Shiite militias loyal to Iran are killing and terrorizing the Iraqi people, slowly starving and brutalizing them under the guise of ignorance, backward Shi’ism, …
The Nujaba Movement, a prominent Shiite terrorist militia from Iraq, has emerged as one of the region’s most influential forces due to its strong affiliations with Iran. Founded in 2013 by Akram al-Kaabi, a former senior leader of the Mahdi Army, the movement has played a pivotal role in both Iraq and Syria. It has …
The Nujaba Movement: Iran’s Key Proxy Force in Iraq and Syria Read More »