For the United States to abandon proxy warfare and directly kill one of Iran’s most senior political figures has changed international politics in a fundamental way. It is a massive error. Its ramifications are profound and complex. There is also a lesson to be...
If it is true the United States killed Iranian Quds Forces Commander General Qassam Soleimani in Iraq yesterday, unverified by the Iranians as I write this, then there is no hyperbole or exaggeration too great to encapsulate what may befall tens of millions of...
It’s a new year, and the U.S. has found a new enemy – an Iraqi militia called Kata’ib Hezbollah. How tragically predictable was that? So who or what is Kata’ib Hezbollah? Why are US forces attacking it? And where will this lead? Kata’ib Hezbollah is one of the...
This article originally appeared at TruthDig. Certain Christmas songs have always made me cry. As a largely lapsed Catholic, Bing Crosby’s “Do You Hear What I Hear?” touches a nerve, John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” reminds me of the horror of combat, and...
During 2019: At least 3,092 people were killed in the various conflicts taking places across Iraq. Another 22,612 were wounded, and 1,384 bodies were found in mass graves. The number of dead was cut in half from 2018, but the number of wounded rose substantially. At...
Contractors were the bane of my existence. It was first apparent to me in Iraq in 2007, at the height of the civil war. A bunch of Blackwater mercenaries had decided to swing through my assigned sector and shoot up a bunch of civilians in a crowded public square. As...
As the calendar prepared to flip from 2019 to 2020, protesters stormed the US embassy in Baghdad. As I write this, the action – a response to US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria which killed at least 25 and wounded more than 50 – hasn’t yet become a...
