Iraq

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Mursi Abu Tawq at Al-Zaman (The Times“) in Baghdad reports that President Joe Biden on Monday announced that the US combat mission in Iraq would end by December 31 of this year, beginning a new stage of military cooperation between the US and Iraq. The remarks came after a White […]

Afghanistan

Who Authorized America’s Wars? And Why They Never End

Tomdispatch

By Andrea Mazzarino | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Sometimes, as I consider America’s never-ending wars of this century, I can’t help thinking of those lyrics from the Edwin Starr song, “(War, huh) Yeah! (What is it good for?) Absolutely nothing!” I mean, remind me, what good have those disastrous, failed, still largely ongoing conflicts done […]

Iran

America’s Afghan War Is Over, So What About Iraq – and Iran?

Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold

( Code Pink) – At Bagram air-base, Afghan scrap merchants are already picking through the graveyard of U.S. military equipment that was until recently the headquarters of America’s 20-year occupation of their country. Afghan officials say the last U.S. forces slipped away from Bagram in the dead of night, without notice or coordination. The Taliban […]

Iraq

Waiting for US withdrawal, is Russia eyeing Iraq’s oil?

Nikola Mikovic

Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – When the George W. Bush administration launched the invasion of Iraq in 2003, many believed the campaign’s main goal was to gain control of the country’s oil. Almost two decades later, most U.S. oil corporations have exited Iraq and the last major, ExxonMobil, appears to be on the way […]

Bush

Donald Rumsfeld, Torturer, Serial Liar, Butcher of Baghdad, dies at 88

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s death at 88 is an occasion for me to recall some of my own writing on his sinister role in the Iraq War. Rumsfeld wanted to invade Iraq so badly he just made up shit to justify that action. In a Salon article I […]

Featured

Iraqi Shiite Militias hit back at US Bases in Syria after Biden Air Raids; Why does US have Bases in Syria? Why Hasn’t it Left Iraq?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Al-Quds reports that Shiite militias in Syria fired several rockets or artillery shells at the US military base in the al-`Umar oil field in Deir al-Zor province in southeastern Syria on Monday evening, in response to Sunday’s US bombing raids on Iraqi Shiite militias on the Syria-Iraq border. There were […]

Featured

A Litany of Failure: Nearly 20 Years Later, the US is Still Bombing Iraq, and Iraq is Still Condemning Israeli Occupation of Palestine

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – When the architects of the illegal 2003 Bush Administration war on Iraq imagined the country nearly twenty years later, they did not foresee that the US would still be bombing it in 2021 in revenge for Iraqi militia attacks on US troops. In fact, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of […]

Iraq

This tiny minority of Iraqis follows an ancient Gnostic religion – and there’s a chance they could be your neighbors too

The Conversation

By James F. McGrath | – ( The Conversation ) – In March 2021 Pope Francis became the first leader of the Roman Catholic Church to visit Iraq. The number of Christians in Iraq has fallen sharply in the past two decades amid mass violence at the hands of the Islamic State group. Iraq stands […]

Featured

Not only Should Congress repeal 2002 Authorization for use of Force in Iraq, it should Apologize for that Pack of Lies

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Jacob Pramuk at CNBC reports that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Biden White House are backing an attempt to repeal the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force that allowed the Bush administration to launch the Iraq War. The repeal is driven in part by the Trump […]