Iraq

The political standoff between Iraq’s Kurds and the government in Baghdad has left pressing disputes over oil and territories unresolved, intensifying the likelihood of conflict.

Spreading corruption threatens to undermine the significant progress Iraq has made toward reducing violence and strengthening state institutions.

The main threat to Iraq’s political order today emanates not from an organised insurgency but from within the political system itself.

As a rule, Iraq’s post-Saddam elections have tended to magnify pre-existing negative trends.

Violence in much of Iraq is at lower levels than in years past but, in Ninewa, the carnage continues.

As sectarian violence in Iraq has ebbed over the past year, a new and potentially just as destructive political conflict has arisen between the federal government and the Kurdistan regional government in Erbil.

On 31 January, Iraqis will head to the polls in fourteen of eighteen governorates to elect new provincial councils.

At a time when rising Arab-Kurdish tensions again threaten Iraq’s stability, neighbouring Turkey has begun to cast a large shadow over Iraqi Kurdistan.

A long-festering conflict over Kirkuk and other disputed territories is threatening to disrupt the current fragile relative peace in Iraq by blocking legislative progress and political accommodation.