A dangerous trend is emerging amongst United States policymakers and political commentators. Faced in Iraq with an ever-strengthening insurgency and an increasingly bloody civil war, more of them are warming
The armed attack on a Shi'a religious procession in Baghdad on 20 August 2006 that killed around seventeen pilgrims (as well as four gunmen) and caused injury to
In Homage to Catalonia, his 1938 account of his experiences during the Spanish revolution at the start of the country's civil war, George Orwell asked an important question
The latest war between Israel and Lebanon is far from over, and will probably last longer than the parties themselves and most observers originally assumed. Both the Israelis and Hizbollah
This week, the third anniversary of the United States-led invasion of Iraq, senior American officials have been trying their best to paint the terrible situation that they have created in
Iraqis go to the polls today, 15 December 2005, in elections that will determine the makeup of the next parliament. According to the country’s new constitution – agreed after tortuous
A Baghdad radio commentator recently asked an Iraqi caller whether he intended to vote in the 15 October referendum on the draft constitution for the country. The caller answered: if
The Iraqi constitutional committee could not come to an agreement on the issues that separated it by the designated date of 15 August 2005: the role Islam should play in
The elections to Lebanons parliament on 29 May are taking place amid a strange political mixture of engagement and disaffection. A little over three months since the country was
The marad al-ras pilgrimage from Najaf to Karbala in 1959 was a pivotal moment in Iraqi history. As always, the religious establishment in Karbala awaited the arrival of the pilgrims
In mid-November 2004, a coalition of political forces committed to participating in the Iraqi elections scheduled for 30 January 2005 was announced, under the guidance of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
It was just as people around the world started believing that the situation was improving, and were shifting their attention to other matters that I traveled to Iraq my parents
