A Reckoning Deferred

by The Editors | published January 12, 2007

How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? That haunting question, posed by John Kerry to Congress when he was a discharged Navy lieutenant in 1971, helped to slow, and eventually stop, a pointless, unpopular war in Vietnam. That question, in part because Kerry declined to pose it anew when he was a presidential candidate in 2004, has yet to slow the unpopular war in Iraq, if anything a more massive US strategic blunder than the Southeast Asian venture. But the question unmistakably haunts the senators who shuffle before the cameras to defend or denounce the planned “surge” of 21,500 additional American soldiers into Iraq as part of the White House’s latest ploy to postpone defeat.

Debating Devolution in Iraq

by Reidar Visser | published March 10, 2008

In early August 2007, Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, a Shi‘i preacher affiliated with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, made headlines with striking comments to a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor. The cleric revealed in an interview with Sam Dagher that “a massive operation” was underway to secure the establishment of a Shi‘i super-province in Iraq, to be named the “South of Baghdad Region,” and projected to encompass all nine majority-Shi‘i governorates south of the Iraqi capital.

A Litmus Test for Iraq

by Reidar Visser | published January 30, 2009

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari arrived in Basra on January 24. His mission in the southern oil port was to stump for his Reformist Front, a breakaway faction of the Da‘wa Party of the current premier, Nouri al-Maliki, ahead of Iraq’s January 31 provincial elections. His itinerary included visits to the Five Miles area -- often described as a stronghold of the movement loyal to the young Shi‘i leader Muqtada al-Sadr -- as well as a rally at a sports stadium. Only days earlier, he had been preceded by Maliki himself, and in the first days of 2009 numerous other national politicians trooped to Basra as well.

Difficulties and Dangers of Regime Removal

by Faleh A. Jabar
published in MER225

The swift success scored by the US in removing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was a catalyst for hawks in George W. Bush’s administration to advocate further experiments in regime removal surgery. But hawkish euphoria at this accomplishment may have been conducive to self-deception in Washington. Afghanistan is not the thesis that proves the viability of regime removal in Iraq; it is, in fact, the antithesis.

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Baghdad Diaries, Then and Now

by Salah Hassan
published in MER227

Rosemary O’Brien, ed. Gertrude Bell: The Arabian Diaries, 1913-1914 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000).

Nuha al-Radi, Baghdad Diaries (London: Saqi Books, 1998).

Paul Rich, ed. Arab War Lords and Iraqi Star Gazers: Gertrude Bell’s The Arab of Mesopotamia (Lincoln, NE: Authors Choice Press, 2001).

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Of Graves and Grievances

by Sinan Antoon
published in MER227

I. Graves

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World Oil Markets and the Invasion of Iraq

by Raad Alkadiri , Fareed Mohamedi
published in MER227

The Worldly Roots of Religiosity in Post-Saddam Iraq

by Faleh A. Jabar
published in MER227

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Fragile Glasnost on the Tigris

by Keith Watenpaugh
published in MER228

Sitting in Baghdad’s packed Café Shahbandar on a Friday afternoon in June of 2003, I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere of open discussion and genuine freedom.

A Clean Slate in Iraq

From Debt to Development

by Justin Alexander , Colin Rowat
published in MER228

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