All Policy Analysis by Bilal Wahab

Three experts evaluate the KRG’s oil and gas industry and discuss the growing urgency of resolving its disputes with Baghdad.

In the second of three discussions marking the thirty-year anniversary of the KRG, experts spotlight the impressive U.S.-Kurdish legacy along with current challenges facing the partnership.

On the anniversary of the Kurdish region’s first election, three experts take stock of the bilateral relationship and internal political and economic challenges.

The legal decision and its political fallout are threatening some of the country’s key interests, including its aspirations toward federalism, its relations with Turkey, and its ability to attract sorely needed international investment.

With militias on the back foot, the United States should lean on Kurdish and Iraqi leaders to find unity of purpose in confronting the destabilizing actions of pro-Iran groups.

The often-hazardous two-year struggle that led to this vote has left many of the youth movement’s most ardent supporters disillusioned with the electoral process entirely, so Washington will have to narrow its focus.

Similarities between the two cases include heavy patronage politics and militia intimidation, but Baghdad has advantages that could help it avoid Kabul’s fate.

Institute scholars share their insights into how the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the rapid fall of the country to the Taliban will affect the American strategic position across the Middle East and our relationships with allies, partners, and adversaries

A senior State Department official, a Baghdad bureau chief, and an Iraqi scholar explore the opportunities and increasingly desperate dangers facing U.S. policy toward the country.

The complexity of Iraq’s challenges might prompt some U.S. officials to balk, but a constructive policy can help advance both Iraqi and American interests in areas ranging from counterterrorism to economic development.

In recalibrating its relationship with Baghdad, the Biden administration should consider how it can encourage the evolution of the country’s nascent cyber economy.

A complicated parliamentary compromise has reactivated some of the machinery required for this year’s proposed ballot and a potential resolution to the KRG energy dispute, though the country’s hobbled legal institutions are still holding back reform.

Given our perpetual crises, we Iraqis rarely look back. But unless Iraqis collectively understand the past and decide how to avoid repeating its mistakes, we are bound to pay these crimes forward as we have in the past.

In addition to publicly condemning the violent repression of demonstrations, Washington should urge its Kurdish allies to stop stalling on economic reforms at home and budget negotiations with Baghdad.

In threatening the closure, the U.S. administration is undermining the reform-minded Iraqi prime minister’s efforts against Iran-backed militias and risking Baghdad’s relationship with Washington.

The visit and follow-on meetings present an opportunity to not only reaffirm the strategic partnership, but also move beyond outdated paradigms that view Iraq solely as an arena for countering terrorism and pushing back against Iran.

If Kurdish leaders do not find a way to get beyond petty squabbles and into governing, they will be unable to pull the KRI out of its current nosedive or put their relationship with Washington on more solid ground.

The Iraqi state is losing the media war to groups that oppose its sovereignty and benefit from continued instability, so Baghdad and Washington should step up their counter-messaging.

One of Iraq’s most prominent public opinion analysts joins two American experts to assess the dialogue’s achievements and discuss what Baghdad and Washington can do to advance real reform.

Allawi’s cabinet failure may indicate growing Iraqi agency at Iran’s expense, but the path toward political stability remains tortuous and foggy.