Iran War Day 37: Paradox Of Iraqi Oil Passing Through Strait Of Hormuz While Oil Sites Attacked

  

The weekend marked a paradox in Iranian strategy towards Iraq. On the one hand there were a series of attacks upon the Iraqi oil industry and on the other a tanker with Iraqi petroleum passed through the Strait of Hormuz after Tehran said Baghdad would be exempt from its blockade.

Iran War Day 36 Iraq's Oil Industry Continues To Be Threatened Financial Crisis By May

The U.S. or Israel bombed the Shalamcheh border crossing between Basra and Iran on the Iranian side. An Iraqi civilian was killed as a result along with five others being wounded.

American Journalist Kittleson Kidnapped In Iraq

  

In the middle of the night loud explosions were heard in Sulaymaniya City but no other details were provided about what happened.

Iraq Wants To Revive Syrian Oil Pipeline

 

On September 28 the Iraqi government announced it was starting talks with Syria to rehabilitate the pipeline between the two countries. The line was closed in 2003 after the U.S. invasion. Since Assad was overthrown in Damascus Baghdad has been trying to improve relations with its neighbor. On the other hand, there are questions over whether the pipeline is even a viable option.

Syria’s Pres Shara Backs Out of Arab Summit In Baghdad, Hit For Iraq’s PM Sudani

Syria’s President Ahmad al-Shara decided not to attend the Arab Summit to be held in Baghdad. This was due to repeated protests and threats by Iraqi parties. It is also a setback for Prime Minister Mohammed Sudani who has been reaching out to the new Syrian government to boost his image in the region and within the country before the November elections.

Dawa And Iraqi Resistance Reject Syrian President Visiting Iraq In May

Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani is trying to normalize relations with the new government in Syria but is facing pushback from pro-Iran groups.

Pro-Iran Factions And Tehran Planning Attacks Upon Syria?

There are worrying reports that pro-Iran groups in Iraq want to intervene in Syria again to undermine or overthrow the new government in Damascus. This is because many were invested in defending the Assad government and Tehran’s interests and want to re-establish their influence in the country.

New Iraqi Armed Factions Threaten Attacks Upon US And Syria

Recent violence in Syria along with U.S. strikes against the Houthis in Yemen has led to new armed factions in Iraq threatening America and Syria.

What Happened With Iraq’s Axis of Resistance And The Fall Of The Syrian Regime?

The fall of the Assad government in December 2024 has sent shockwaves through Iraq. It was a major loss for the pro-Iran Hashd known as the Islamic Resistance who’d gone there in 2011 at the direction of Iran to support Damascus and used the country to launch attacks upon American forces stationed there and Israel. That raises the question of why the Resistance didn’t put up a major fight to try to preserve the regime.

Security In Iraq Dec 15-21, 2024

There was no political violence in Iraq for another week in December.

Iraqi Govt Denies It But Pro-Iran Factions Enter Syria To Support Assad

At least one pro-Iran Hashd group has sent fighters to Syria to support the Assad government against the ongoing insurgent offensive in Aleppo. This is despite official government denials.

US Army In The Iraq War Volume 2 Chapter 13 Toward The Defeat Of AQI, August 2009-July 2010

Chapter 13 in the U.S. Army’s second volume on the Iraq war covers the end of 2009 to the start of 2010. The Islamic State of Iraq reached a nadir during that period losing most of its leadership and manpower. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki continued to be an incompetent war time leader while plotting to hold onto power after he lost an election. That meant Iraq couldn’t take advantage of the decline of the insurgency.

Review Cairo 1921, Ten Days That Made the Middle East

Faught, C. Brad, Cairo 1921, Ten Days That Made the Middle East, Yale University Press, 2022

 

The 1921 Cairo conference held by British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill helped create the modern Middle East. Borders were drawn, kings were installed, and a new policy of neo-colonialism was created. That’s what C. Brad Faught’s Cairo 1921, Ten Days That Made the Middle East focuses upon.

Review When Parliaments Ruled the Middle East, Iraq and Syria, 1946-63

Rey, Matthieu, When Parliaments Ruled the Middle East, Iraq and Syria, 1946-63, Cairo New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2022

 

Matthieu Rey in When Parliaments Ruled the Middle East, Iraq and Syria, 1946-63 doesn’t provide a completely convincing argument that parliamentary democracy became the basis of post-World War II politics in Iraq and Syria. Rey’s thesis is that during the end of the Ottoman period until the early 1960s a new elite emerged in Iraq and Syria that wanted Western style political reforms and pushed parliamentarianism as the way to achieve them. It expanded representation but also led to divisions which eventually ended the system. Rey does prove that parliamentarism persisted in both countries despite coups and would be autocrats. On the other hand he downplays many issues like corrupt elections, how assemblies lacked power and how there were never any substantive reforms. That’s why his book doesn’t completely pass the test.

Security In Iraq Dec 1-7, 2023

The Islamic State continues to disappear in Iraq but pro-Iran factions are continuing their campaign against US targets in the country over the war in Gaza.

New U.S. Report Outlines The State Of The Islamic State

The American Lead Inspector General for Operation Inherent Resolve released its quarterly report. It said that the Islamic State continues with a low level insurgency and is entrenched in rural areas of Iraq and Syria. It has plenty of resources and is attempting to rebuild its manpower.

EU Puts Iraq On List of Money Laundering-Terrorist Financing Countries

(Currency Return)

The European Union Commission placed Iraq on a list of high risk countries for money laundering and terrorist funding. That means financial transactions between Iraq and the EU will have to go through extra regulations, taking more time, raising costs, and there will be restrictions on investment. Other countries on the EU’s list are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Iran and North Korea. Iraq’s Foreign Ministry immediately protested. Iraq’s Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism Office said the country had made progress on those issues and this would be resolved soon. This all centers around the Central Bank of Iraq’s dollar auctions that have been manipulated by the country’s ruling parties, foreign governments, criminals and the Islamic State for years.

Review Under The Black Flag, At The Frontier Of The New Jihad

Moubayed, Sami, Under The Black Flag, At TheFrontier Of The New Jihad, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2015

The rise of the Islamic State (IS) in 2014 led to a cottage industry of books on the topic. Under The Black Flag, At The Frontier Of The New Jihad was one of them. Author Sami Moubayed wrote that the purpose of Under The Black Flag was to explore the ideological history of IS. He was a Syrian historian, which shaped his work. That’s seen with the first half of the book being about the Islamic empires, the caliphate and the Islamist movement in Syria even though he admits that the Islamic State had little to do with that country until 2011. When IS is finally discussed in the second half it is full of inaccuracies. The lack of focus and the problems it has with its topic makes Under The Black Flag a book to avoid.

Review Shatter the Nations, ISIS and the War for the Caliphate

Review Giglio, Mike, Shatter the Nations, ISIS and the War for the Caliphate, New York: Public Affairs, 2019

Mike Giglio worked for Newsweek and the Daily Beast covering the Arab Spring in Egypt, the Syrian civil war, and finally the Battle for Mosul. He put that experience into Shatter the Nations, ISIS and the War for the Caliphate. It reads like short vignettes of Giglio’s time in Egypt, Turkey, Syria and Iraq. That’s its major problem however as these individual stories, while enjoyable to read, don’t add up to a unified story.

World War II In Iraq and Syria Interview With Case Western’s Prof Broich

British troops at Habbaniya Air Base, Anbar which was surrounded by the Iraqis during the start of the 1941 Anglo-Iraq War (Imperial War Museim)

In 1941, the British overthrew the government of Prime Minister Rashid Al-Gailani in Iraq and invaded Syria. Baghdad had reached out to the Germans and Italians, Syria was run by Vichy France, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill believed that the Axis was making a play to take over the Middle East. These two conflicts are barely mentioned in World War II histories today, but at the time it was a major event for all those involved. John Broich, an Associated Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University recently published a book on this subject Blood, Oil and the Axis: The Allied Resistance Against A Fascist State In Iraq and the Levant, 1941. This is an interview with Prof. Broich about the war in Iraq and Syria.