Iraq’s Deal With Oil Majors Could Crush OPEC’s Output Freeze Plans

Iraq and oil majors BP (NYSE:BP), Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) and Lukoil have agreed to resume investments in oil fields the foreign groups are developing, which is expected to raise the country’s crude output by 250,000-350,000 barrels per day in 2017, Reuters reported on Thursday, quoting Iraqi officials—a move that has the potential to aggravate the supply glut and muddy the waters of the additional OPEC meeting in September, which some were glass-half-fulling might end with a production cap of some sort.

ISIS feeds on Iraq’s political instability and oil

For 15 years, Iraq has been under constant media attention. From the suspicions of hidden weapons of mass destruction to the high level violence of the Islamic State (ISIS), a lot has been said on what is happening in Iraq, why it is happening, and how it got there. However, since 2014, the increase in opinions, debates, and experts on terrorism has only contributed to a lack of meaning.

Iraq has been in a constant state of political chaos, of which the 2003 US-led intervention was the starting point. Driven by the idea of American idealism and transforming the intervention into an ideological war, the US goal behind the invasion of Iraq was to establish democracy in the Middle East. But at what price for Iraq?

Reflections on Ramadi

The Iraqi city of Ramadi has fallen again into the hands of the Islamic State, a group born of al Qaeda in Iraq. That this terrorist organization, whose brutality needs no description, has retaken a city once fought for by American soldiers troubles me. I served two deployments in Ramadi, fighting al Qaeda. Comrades died in that fight. I was shot in Ramadi. My initial reaction, like that of many veterans, is to ask what the hell it was all for, when nothing seems to change. The whole endeavor was a costly bloodletting and it seems the price we paid yielded no actual benefit. Yet, Memorial Day is as much a day for reflection as it is for remembrance and commemoration. And in reflecting, I have had to sit back and define exactly what we are memorializing on this day.

How to Win Friends and Influence Iraqis

Iranian special forces, backed by Iraqi Shiite militias, are poised to finish pushing the Islamic State out of Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit as soon as this week. That would be Baghdad’s first major victory over the militants — and it may be won without any direct U.S. military involvement whatsoever.

Deadly American airstrikes, including at least seven this weekend, are still vital to routing the extremists in western and northern Iraq and have cleared the way for security forces to move into other areas. But it is a truism among Middle Eastern nations that battlefield bravery wins the wasta — Arabic for “influence” — both in the military and in politics.

ISIS Burn Iraqi Oil Fields To Hold Off Iraqi Offensive

Thick black smoke billowing from oil wells northeast of the city of Tikrit is obstructing Shi'ite militiamen and Iraqi soldiers attempts to drive ISIS from the Sunni Muslim city after militants set them on fire. Reuters reports a witness and a military source said Islamic State fighters ignited the fire at the Ajil oil field to shield themselves from attack by Iraqi military helicopters. As we noted previously, the battle for Tikrit is key as it will determine whether and how fast the Iraqi forces can advance further north and attempt to win back Mosul, the biggest city under Islamic State rule.

As Reuters reports,

Islamic State militants have set fire to oil wells northeast of the city of Tikrit to obstruct an assault by Shi'ite militiamen and Iraqi soldiers trying to drive them from the Sunni Muslim city and surrounding towns, a witness said.

U.S. Fears New Iraqi Prime Minister Isn’t Serious About Sunni Outreach

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s recent visit to Baghdad and his tense meetings with leaders there have left some American officials worried about Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s commitment toward reconciliation with Iraq’s embattled Sunni minority, which is key to the U.S.-led effort to rebuild the Iraqi military forces and defeat the Islamic State.

Abadi not only pressed Hagel to supply more American weapons and increase the tempo of U.S.-led airstrikes on the Islamic State — taking the Pentagon chief by surprise — but also expressed doubts about normalizing relations in the long term with Iraq’s Sunnis, according to two senior American officials.

Investigation finds 50,000 ‘ghost’ soldiers in Iraqi army, prime minister says

The Iraqi army has been paying salaries to at least 50,000 soldiers who don’t exist, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Sunday, an indication of the level of corruption that permeates an institution that the United States has spent billions equipping and arming.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi (Hadi Mizban/AP)

A preliminary investigation into “ghost soldiers” — whose salaries are being drawn but who are not in military service — revealed the tens of thousands of false names on Defense Ministry rolls, Abadi told parliament Sunday. Follow-up investigations are expected to uncover “more and more,” he added.

Turkey, the Kurds and Iraq: The Prize and Peril of Kirkuk

In June 1919, aboard an Allied warship en route to Paris, sat Damat Ferid Pasha, the Grand Vizier of a crumbling Ottoman Empire. The elderly statesman, donning an iconic red fez and boasting an impeccably groomed mustache, held in his hands a memorandum that he was to present to the Allied powers at the Quai d'Orsay. The negotiations on postwar reparations started five months earlier, but the Ottoman delegation was prepared to make the most of its tardy invitation to the talks. As he journeyed across the Mediterranean that summer toward the French shore, Damat Ferid mentally rehearsed the list of demands he would make to the Allied powers during his last-ditch effort to hold the empire together.

He began with a message, not of reproach, but of inculpability: "Gentlemen, I should not be bold enough to come before this High Assembly if I thought that the Ottoman people had incurred any responsibility in the war that has ravaged Europe and Asia with fire and sword." His speech was followed by an even more defiant memorandum, denouncing any attempt to redistribute Ottoman land to the Kurds, Greeks and Armenians, asserting: "In Asia, the Turkish lands are bounded on the south by the provinces of Mosul and Diyarbakir, as well as a part of Aleppo as far as the Mediterranean." When Damat Ferid's demands were presented in Paris, the Allies were in awe of the gall displayed by the Ottoman delegation. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George regarded the presentation as a "good joke," while U.S. President Woodrow Wilson said he had never seen anything more "stupid." They flatly rejected Damat Ferid's apparently misguided appeal -- declaring that the Turks were unfit to rule over other races, regardless of their common Muslim identity -- and told him and his delegation to leave. The Western powers then proceeded, through their own bickering, to divide the post-Ottoman spoils.

Ukraine, Iraq and a Black Sea Strategy

The United States is, at the moment, off balance. It faces challenges in the Syria-Iraq theater as well as challenges in Ukraine. It does not have a clear response to either. It does not know what success in either theater would look like, what resources it is prepared to devote to either, nor whether the consequences of defeat would be manageable. 

A dilemma of this sort is not unusual for a global power. Its very breadth of interests and the extent of power create opportunities for unexpected events, and these events, particularly simultaneous challenges in different areas, create uncertainty and confusion. U.S. geography and power permit a degree of uncertainty without leading to disaster, but generating a coherent and integrated strategy is necessary, even if that strategy is simply to walk away and let events run their course. I am not suggesting the latter strategy but arguing that at a certain point, confusion must run its course and clear intentions must emerge. When they do, the result will be the coherence of a new strategic map that encompasses both conflicts. 

Can Iraq's Disintegration be Prevented?

At present, it is difficult to see how the ongoing implosion of Iraq can be stalled and reversed. The world  started taking note of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and its leader  Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has been declared as ‘caliph’ of an  ‘Islamic State’  claiming sovereignty over a stretch of territory from Aleppo in north-western Syria to Diyala in north-eastern Iraq only when Mosul fell on June 20. But, his forces had taken over Raqqa, Syria, in March 2013, and Falluja, Iraq, in January 2014.

ISIL, a breakaway group from al Qaeda in Iraq, is basically a part of the Sunni Resistance to the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq.  The US had made unsuccessful, half-hearted, and not always judicious attempts to build an Iraq that could accommodate the three main groups: the Shias, the Sunnis, and the Kurds. But, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who took office in 2006 with support from the US and Iran   carried out a policy of alienating the Sunnis and the Kurds. His reckless partisan policies created the conditions for the emergence of a formation called Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) to grow and derive support from the Sunni population.

The Inevitability of Foreign Entanglements

The Fourth of July weekend gave me time to consider events in Iraq and Ukraine, U.S.-German relations and the Mexican borderland and immigration. I did so in the context of the founding of the United States, asking myself if America has strayed from the founders' intent with regard to foreign policy. Many people note Thomas Jefferson's warning that the United States should pursue "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations -- entangling alliances with none," taking that as the defining strategy of the founders. I think it is better to say that was the defining wish of the founders but not one that they practiced to extremes.

As we know, U.S. President Barack Obama has said he wants to decrease U.S. entanglements in the world. Ironically, many on the right want to do the same. There is a common longing for an America that takes advantage of its distance from the rest of the world to avoid excessive involvement in the outside world. Whether Jefferson's wish can constitute a strategy for the United States today is a worthy question for a July 4, but there is a more profound issue: Did his wish ever constitute American strategy?

Worsening Violence in Iraq Threatens Regional Security

Battles continue to rage across northern Iraq, pitting jihadist group the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant against Iraqi security forces and their allies. The growing reach of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant has escalated an already brutal campaign in Iraq. Alarmingly quick advances by the militants across an important region of the Middle East could draw in regional powers as well as the United States.

Jihadis in firm control of Iraq's Mosul, 500,000 flee

Jihadis were in firm control Wednesday of Iraq's second city Mosul after seizing it and a swathe of other territory, patrolling its streets and calling for government employees to return to work.

The Sunni militants including fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) overran Mosul on Tuesday, dealing the Shiite-led Iraqi government a spectacular blow and sparking a mass exodus of an estimated half a million people.

Q&A: Iraq elections explained

Iraqis head to the polls this week amid an unprecedented level of violence [EPA]\

On Wednesday, Iraqis headed to the polls to elect a parliament amid a level of violence not seen for years. Unlike 2010, when voters' focus was on corruption and governance issues, this year, much of the focus will be on security.

Iraq's Oil War

Along-simmering controversy over control of Iraq's massive oil reserves flared into the open Friday as one of the country's most powerful ministers threatened to take legal action against Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey and any foreign companies that helped the Kurds export oil without permission from Baghdad. 

Wave of Violence Threatens Ambitious Iraqi Oil Goals

A wave of violence has swept parts of Iraq at the start of 2014 as the central government fights backagainst Al-Qaeda aligned militants in Anbar Province. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) reportedly took control of Ramadi and Fallujah, bombing police headquarters and killing dozens. On New Year’s Day Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sent in reinforcements to take back control of Anbar Province’s two largest cities. The clashes kick off 2014 in much the same way as 2013 ended – a return to violence in a country that had seen important security gains in recent years.

Over 7,800 civilians were killed in Iraq in 2013, the bloodiest year over the past five. The latest violence occurred in Anbar Province, a region that dogged the U.S. military during its decade-long war. ISIL is also engaged in fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and the latest string of events indicates that the violence of the Syrian civil war is spreading deeper into Iraq.

Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran

The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America's military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned. In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq's war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein's military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

Iraq jailbreak highlights al-Qaeda affiliate’s ascendancy

Hundreds of extremists were feared to be on the run in Iraq on Monday after al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the country launched a major assault on the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, offering a fresh boost to the group’s resurgent fortunes in Iraq and in Syria.

Guards stand at a cell block at Abu Ghraib in 2009.

Iraq’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that an unspecified number of prisoners had escaped from Abu Ghraib but none from a second facility that also came under assault. In Washington, U.S. officials closely monitoring the jailbreak said the number of escapees was thought to be 500 to 600, including a significant number of al-Qaeda operatives.

From the war in Iraq to the battle against Israel boycotters

Can an idea honed on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan prove effective in defending against assaults on Israel’s legitimacy in North America? David Dabscheck, deputy managing director of the Israel Action Network, thinks so.

The idea, in the words of General Stanley McChrystal — commander of the US Joint Special Operations Command — that “it takes a network to defeat a network” played a central role in his concept for fighting insurgents in the Middle East .

Sectarianism in Iraq stoked by Syrian war

A recent tide of sectarian tensions that erupted into the worst violence seen in Iraq in five years is testing the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose ability to contain the crisis could hinge on a conflict raging beyond his control in Syria.

SAAD SHALASH/REUTERS - Residents gather at the site of a bomb attack in Baghdad's Hussainiya district, on May 6, 2013. The recent increase in sectarian violence in Iraq is testing the government of Nouri al-Maliki.

The prospect of a regional power shift driven by the bloody civil war next door, where a mostly Sunni rebel movement is struggling to topple the Shiite-dominated regime, has emboldened Iraq’s Sunni minority to challenge its own Shiite government and amplified fears within Maliki’s administration that Iraq may soon be swept up in a spillover war.