Iraq’s refugees tell heartbreaking accounts of suffering, displacement, and shattered dreams, but these refugees represent more than mere human interest stories. Collectively, the outpouring of millions of Iraqi refugees into a very small number of neighboring countries poses a dramatic security threat to the Middle East, and there is no sign that threat is going away. In the lead up to the Iraq war, most of the U.S. government discussion about refugees assumed that refugee flows would be sudden, massive and brief. When more than a million Kurds fled Iraq into Turkey and Iran in 1991 to avoid Saddam’s wrath, [...]
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization last week announced that it is contemplating scaling back its highly publicized NATO Response Force, the Alliance’s rapid reaction military force and its catalyst for military transformation. As is often the case for NATO, the real world intruded on its military ambitions. “There is an examination underway” within NATO to see how to sustain the response force, which requires a steady state of 25,000 troops trained and ready to deploy, said spokesman James Appathurai at a press briefing in Brussels. “We could have an NRF that is not always at 25,000” he postulated, “rather than [...]
In his role as national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie is one of the key figures in the Iraqi government. Shortly before General David H. Petraeus presented his Iraq report to the U.S. Congress on Sept. 10, reporter Urs Gehriger of the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche met with Rubaie at his home in Baghdad. In a 90-minute interview, the British-trained neurologist spoke about progress in Iraq, continuing challenges, and the consequences of a withdrawal of American troops. World Politics Review presents this wide-ranging interview for the first time in English. -o- Next week will be a crucial moment for Iraq. General [...]
