Anwar Raza Rizvi is a writer on Islamic / Middle Eastern affairs and a regular contributor to openDemocracy.

Recent articles

The relationship between the Islamic Republic and the Shi'a militant group in Lebanon is based on a fusion of ideas, money and politics, says Anwar Rizvi.

Iraq three years after the fall of Saddam is a place of sectarian and insurgent violence, insecurity and fear. But does this amount to civil war? Anwar Rizvi, recently in Iraq, weighs the evidence.

Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the largest party in the victorious Shi’a coalition likely to dominate Iraq’s new government, talks to Anwar Rizvi about uniting Iraq, defeating insurgency, and keeping faith with an Iran threatened by United States attack.

As the votes are counted, the real story of Iraq’s first democratic vote since 1953 may be that the country’s Shi’a majority is transforming the nature of Iraqi politics.