Confronting ISIS – military intervention or peaceful alternatives?
In the absence of a viable solution the crimes committed by ISIS, it is arguable that intervention is the only available route. However, the first step to... Read More
Iraq, Syria and the MidEast – what is to be done?
The essential fact of the sectarian conflicts (internal and external) that have characterized the MidEast for decades has been the artificial boundaries left behind by... Read More
Islamic State in Iraq-Syria – the standards of world law
The UN Human Rights Council Special Session on Iraq was a major advance for world law as for the first time, a non-state actor is... Read More
When fighting terror produces ever more radicals and sectarianism
At a time when Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria is on the cusp of being accepted as just another effort in the general “war on terror,”... Read More
A tale of two genocides
While approaches to “genocide” differ and the claimants voices are many, the historic legacy of genocide must be a starting point. One could conclude that... Read More
Kosovo, Ukraine, Syria and Iraq
The struggles by ethnic and religious groups left behind by empire cannot be resolved by outsiders. These competing groups need to find their own way... Read More
Whose peace are we building?
There is a reason why military and foreign intervention doesn’t work. These interventions thrust “solutions” onto the people of the country intervened in. These “solutions”... Read More
Time to do a deal with Assad?
The military options for the West vis-a-vis Iraq and the IS are limited without some ability to operate permissively in Syria. This would require movement... Read More
From Nigeria to Iraq – the on-going failure to protect women and girls in armed conflict
Armed conflicts like the one currently consuming Iraq, plus the actions of Boko Haram in Nigeria, continue to show that women and girls are among the most... Read More
Before the next ISIS, we need nonviolent counterterrorism strategies
There are three easy paths any rational politician could advocate that will decrease hostilities, prevent the emergence of new terrorism recruiting environments and empower local... Read More
Bosnia and Iraq – cycles of calamity
Whatever government structure is finally developed for an ethnically segregated Iraq it should not be as dysfunctional as the Dayton constitution proved to be for... Read More
Turkey’s rapprochement with Iraqi Kurdistan – an obstacle to the Kurdish peace process?
The decision by Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to pursue rapprochement with the president of Iraqi Kurdistan could prove a profound obstacle to the Kurdish... Read More
Temperance in the Arab Spring – averting catastrophe through great power politics
The world’s most politically volatile region, the Middle East, has been stabilised through the collective common sense of three Great Powers – the United States,... Read More
Women, wartime and the dream of peace
In war we often see only the frontline stories of soldiers and combat. Zainab Salbi tells powerful “backline” stories of women who keep everyday life... Read More
Peace day in Najaf
To mark World Peace Day on September 21st 2013, a group of young people in Najaf, Iraq, called “Moja” team, drew attention to the dangers... Read More
Syrian military intervention – Washington’s “well-oiled” operation
The United States has only to gain from the likely military intervention which will give it unrestricted access to Syria’s oil reserves, with a larger... Read More
Sexual violence in the global war on terror
Despite not being a traditional armed conflict, sexual violence has been rampant in the global war on terror. The prevalence of sexual violence in these “wars”... Read More
Syria disfigured – options for the West
To understand what a militarily-inspired democratic transplant might achieve in Syria, one might look at what happened when the Iraqi Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein... Read More
There never was an “Arab Spring”
With the top of the leadership pyramid removed, the societies left behind were rife with internal divisions. Without any historical experience, or sufficient wealth to divide... Read More
On the mathematics of war
By pulling raw data from the news and plotting it onto a graph, Sean Gourley and his team have come up with a stunning conclusion... Read More
We’ll do this again sometime – retaining lessons-learned from Iraq and Afghanistan
As NATO prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan, and the engagement in Iraq passes 10 years, government leaders must take on board the lessons learned from... Read More
Federation under US influence in Iraq and Bosnia-Herzegovina
In neither Bosnia nor Iraq did the Americans anticipate that fragmentation and mutual communal suspicion would trump the power and political engineering of soldiers, diplomats, and the multitude of Western NGOs.
