Middle East

As Bill Maher has quipped, we have had a balanced set of commentaries on the Iraq War on television news. We have heard from the generals and the retired generals. Today at the NYT we hear from some specialists and sergeants. In a thoughtful, analytically precise, and informed essay, they lament the pie in the […]

The USG Open Source Center translates a recent speech of Ammar al-Hakim, who is functioning as acting leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council while his father is undergoing treatment for cancer. Via BBC World Monitoring “July 22, 2007 Sunday Iraq’s Ammar al-Hakim addresses Martyr Day rally 21 July, 2007 [Speech by Ammar Abd-al-Aziz al-Hakim, […]

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the purpose of PM Nuri al-Maliki’s visit to Tikrit (Saddam Hussein’s old home base) was to convince some tribal notables there to accept ministerial positions in his government. The main Sunni Arab party, the Iraqi Accord Front, is boycotting al-Maliki’s government, and he is therefore desperate to find some Sunnis […]

Four parties have formed a coalition in parliament to support Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. They are the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the Islamic Call (Da`wa) Party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The parties are led respectively by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, Nuri al-Maliki, Massoud Barzani, and Jalal Talabani. The coalition failed […]

Here are the Iraq-related conversations in the USG Open Source Center roundup of Pan-Arab satellite talk shows for the past week. For the non-Iraq portions, see our Global Affairs group blog. Weekly Roundup of Pan-Arab TVs Talk Shows 5-11 Aug Corrected version; replacing text; changing Subject Qatar — OSC Summary Thursday, August 16, 2007 At […]

Patrick Cockburn correctly put the bombings in Sinjar province in the context of the upcoming referendum on whether the oil-rich Kirkuk province will accede to the Kurdistan Regional government. That is, a territorial struggle is going on in the north among ethnic groups that is likely to worsen later this year. Cockburn also provides this […]

Just taped a segment for the Lehrer News Hour on Iraq. Will be aired today, 8/15.

Local officials in the two villages of of Al-Qataniyah and Al-Adnaniyah in northern Iraq (not far from Mosul) maintained Wednesday morning that 4 car bombs had killed over 200 persons and wounded a similar number. Police were expecting the death toll to rise, since many bodies are in buildings collapsed by the conflagrations. The US […]