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In the days following the decimation of the Iraqi Army during Operation Desert Storm, groups of Iraqi minorities, specifically the Shia in the south and the Kurds in the north, seized on the weakness of Saddam Hussein’s armed forces to try and overthrow the Iraqi Baathist regime that had oppressed them for decades. At the […]
As the cradle of civilization, Iraq has thousands of years of history and artifacts that provide a glimpse into the origins of human civilization and customs. When the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, thousands of artifacts, priceless pieces from centuries of different cultures and civilizations, were destroyed and stolen as U.S. forces made […]
Increasingly concerned by Iraq’s illicit program to produce nuclear weapons, Israel ordered its air force on a secret mission on June 7, 1981 to take out the Osirak nuclear reactor. The mission, code-named Operation Opera, shocked leaders across the Middle East as they saw Israel’s ability to strike unilaterally and preemptively as a threat to […]
In 2001 Ann Wright served as the first political officer in the newly reopened U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Two years later she was one of three diplomats to publicly resign from the Foreign Service due to disagreements with the Bush Administration’s foreign policy on Iraq and other issues. Prior to her resignation Wright had a […]
In his lengthy article for the Washington Post, Ali Khedery contended that the U.S. backed Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki long after it was evident that he could not be the person to unite the country. Ambassador James Jeffrey took issue with that view and responded in a follow-up piece to the July 13, 2014 Washington […]
To understand why Iraq is imploding, you must understand Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — and why the United States has supported him since 2006. In this insightful piece, which originally appeared in the Washington Post Outlook section on July 6, 2014, Ali Khedery traces the rise of Maliki from an obscure politician to the divisive leader of […]
In 1958, the 14 July Revolution ended the thirty-seven-year Hashemite monarchy of Iraq in a coup d’état and established the Republic of Iraq. The Free Officer group, led by General Abd al-Karim Qasim and his associate Colonel Abdul Salam Arif, was inspired by Pan-Arab nationalism and Nasser of Egypt’s 1952 overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy. […]
In early August 1990, the president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, ordered the invasion of Kuwait. Some of Hussein’s contentious justifications ranged from accusing Kuwait of stealing crude oil from Iraqi territory to the idea that Kuwait was an artificial state originally a part of Iraq carved out by western powers. In the eyes of many […]
On October 18, 2021 America lost a remarkable leader and public servant. Colin Powell served as the highest ranking soldier, national security advisor, and diplomat. Powell served the U.S. Army for thirty-five years, rising through the ranks to become a four-star general. Additionally, Powell was the first Black national security advisor, chairman of the Joint […]
The Biden administration nominated Ambassador Julieta Valls Noyes to serve as assistant secretary of state for the department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM). A career diplomat, Noyes previously served as deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, where she managed relations between Western Europe and the EU from 2014 […]
