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Soriek  1yr ago (text post)   1644 thread views

Transnational Thursdays 26

This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum lives in or might be interested in. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Iraq

I’ve covered a while back the mess of the last Iraqi election, where the anti-Tehran winner Moqtada al-Sadr was ousted by the Iranian aligned Federal Supreme Court, leaving the loose coalition of pro-Iran parties, known as the Coordinated Framework, still running the show. In more exciting news, that same Supreme Court has now ruled that it will terminate the Mohamed al-Halbousi’s tenure as the Parliament Speaker, the highest role a Sunni can hold in Iraq’s consociational government. Ostensibly the reason was because of a dispute between him and another Sunni official, also now removed, though it leaves the government a little rudderless. It is unclear who will replace him but the position must be held by a Sunni.

The United States Institute of Peace offers a one year retrospective on Al-Sudani, the leader who took over in Al-Sadr’s wake:

Iraq has played an important role in Iran-Saudi and other rapprochement efforts in the Middle East for a few years now. As prime minister, al-Sudani has continued on the path toward regional integration and collaborative engagement.

They [the government under Al-Sudani] have leveraged the relative political stability and security of the current moment to pursue the “Development Road,” a project that promotes Iraq as a dry canal of ports, highways and railways that connect Asia to Europe — as ambitious and big a vision as other countries in the region.

Iraq has also signed contracts with General Electric, Total Energies, Siemens and others to improve energy production domestically while sharing a piece of the economic pie. The al-Sudani government’s support for financing the al-Muhandis company and connecting Iraq and Iran by rail might be seen as entrenching Iran’s interests and agenda — which are often viewed as malign by many of Iraq’s citizens, neighbors and western supporters. But another view might see the move as part of a pragmatic approach to portray Iraq as a web of mutually beneficial economic interests in the region.

In his first year, al-Sudani also had to work with Iran and the Kurdistan Region leadership to prevent further Iranian missile and drone attacks on Iranian opposition based in Iraq. Khor Mor gas field was attacked multiple times, with fingers pointing to Iran and its proxies attempting to hamper Kurdish and Iraqi aspirations to become a player in the global gas market.

Relations with Turkey is also a mix of working through difficult portfolios, including the expansion of Turkish military attacks inside Iraq against the Kurdistan Workers' Party, water issues, oil export via Ceyhan, trade and construction.

Furthermore, Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court ruling that a 2012 Iraq-Kuwait maritime agreement was unconstitutional raised alarms among gulf neighbors regarding Iraq’s commitment to its obligations.

Also, minor spatterings of the Hamas-Israel war seem to have spilled over to the US in Iraq as well with attacks on multiple US targets. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Iraq last week and spoke with Al-Sudani about avoiding future anti-American violence. However, the attacks have continued.

United States troops in Iraq have been targeted in new attacks using drones and explosives, military and security sources reported.

Three attacks took place on Thursday, the sources told Reuters. The incidents add to the more than 40 assaults that US and allied troops based across the Middle East have come under since the Israel-Hamas war started on October 7…

As well as two drone assaults at bases, a US-led coalition convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in the vicinity of Mosul Dam.

The security sources said the patrol was accompanied by Iraqi counterterrorism forces and that a vehicle in the patrol was damaged. Three US troops sustained minor injuries but had returned to duty, the official added.

Drone attacks targeted American and coalition forces at the Ain al-Asad airbase west of Baghdad and al-Harir airbase in Erbil. Both drones were destroyed before reaching their target, the sources said.

A statement from Iraqi Kurdistan’s counterterrorism service added that the attack at al-Harir had caused a fire at one of its fuel depots, but added that US-led coalition forces had evacuated the airbase on October 20.

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