Tag: Iraq

The Invisible Hand of Military Merger: Organisational Culture in Kurdistan

Verena Gruber Civil wars have been an increasingly frequent occurrence since 1989. The most significant difference to “regular”, inter-state conflicts is that in civil wars solutions to both war and peace must be found within the confinement of predetermined geographical borders. Separatism is rarely a solution, because the international community currently stresses sovereign territory as… Read More The Invisible Hand of Military Merger: Organisational Culture in Kurdistan

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The British Army & the Chilcot Report: Strategy isn’t the answer

DR DAVID MORGAN-OWEN This post originally appeared on The Wavell Room – a new blog to encourage the discussion of thinking within the British armed forces. Follow the Wavell room on Twitter @wavellroom The long-await report of Sir John Chilcot’s commission on the Iraq War is feeding a dangerous illusion in the British Armed Forces: that… Read More The British Army & the Chilcot Report: Strategy isn’t the answer

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Erdogan and the National Pact: the fallout today from the British Army’s seizing of Mosul in 1918

By Dr Rod Thornton Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently repeated his country’s long-held territorial claim to Mosul and the whole of northern Iraq. Such a claim is based on the belief prevalent in Turkey that this area had, as territory of the Ottoman empire, been illegally seized by the British in November 1918… Read More Erdogan and the National Pact: the fallout today from the British Army’s seizing of Mosul in 1918

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Why Islamic State is wrong: Sykes-Picot is not responsible for controversial borders in the Middle East – but the British military is (Part 2)

This is Part Two of a two part series on the topic by Dr. Rod Thornton. Dr Rod Thornton Throughout Ottoman times and from probably much earlier, it was the agricultural produce of the Mosul vilayet that fed the people of the less fertile vilayets of Baghdad and Basra. Finished-goods trade went the other way.… Read More Why Islamic State is wrong: Sykes-Picot is not responsible for controversial borders in the Middle East – but the British military is (Part 2)

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Why Islamic State is wrong: Sykes-Picot is not responsible for controversial borders in the Middle East – but the British military is (Part 1)

This is Part One of a two part series on Sykes-Picot and the controversial borders of the Middle East. Dr Rod Thornton The Sykes-Picot Agreement, reached during the First World War by Britain and France, has recently been given renewed prominence. This has come about with the claim by Islamic State (IS) that this accord… Read More Why Islamic State is wrong: Sykes-Picot is not responsible for controversial borders in the Middle East – but the British military is (Part 1)

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Chilcot: The Lessons of Iraq vs The Reality of Interventions

DR CHRIS TRIPODI Chilcot’s exhaustive enquiry into the origins, undertaking, and consequences of the Iraq war has been published. In turn, this (rather less than) exhaustive analysis of certain of its conclusions seeks to explore two of the critical components of the faulty pre war decision-making process as identified by the report. It will propose… Read More Chilcot: The Lessons of Iraq vs The Reality of Interventions

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THE OTHER VIETNAM ANALOGY: TONY BLAIR, HAROLD WILSON AND THE ‘SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP’.

DR GERAINT HUGHES Even before the release of the Chilcot Report on 6th July 2016 the reputation of Tony Blair was tarnished by the controversies surrounding Britain’s involvement in the Iraq War (2003-2009), his relationship with former President George W. Bush, and the flawed decision-making which took the UK into this conflict. One side-effect of Operation Telic is that… Read More THE OTHER VIETNAM ANALOGY: TONY BLAIR, HAROLD WILSON AND THE ‘SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP’.

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Iraq: not the first British disaster … and it’s unlikely to be the last

DR CHRIS TUCK After seven years, the Chilcot inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war finally has been released. Its conclusions are an excoriating critique of the limitations in British strategy and policy in 2003. The inquiry has identified a raft of issues: that war was not the last resort and… Read More Iraq: not the first British disaster … and it’s unlikely to be the last

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WHY THE EU’S FOREIGN POLICY FAILS TO BREAK DOWN BARRIERS TO PEACE

By DR AMIR M KAMEL At the 2016 International Studies Association (ISA) conference, I presented a paper arguing that the EU’s peace-through-trade policy failed in the cases of Iraq, Iran and Libya as it did not take into account the context in which it was being implemented, i.e. the barriers to peace. The paper draws from… Read More WHY THE EU’S FOREIGN POLICY FAILS TO BREAK DOWN BARRIERS TO PEACE

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