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Hunt Oil signs a deal to explore for oil in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Because national legislation on oil has been stalled in the Iraqi Parliament, the Kurdistan regional government has passed its own law consistent with the provisions of the national legislation, and the deal with the Hunts is under this regional legislation.

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A Trump ally, Senator Graham says president Trump is going to slow the withdrawal from Syria that was planned. He says the president learned from his trip to Iraq first hand about conditions in the region. He is now consulting allies about how best to accomplish the withdrawal gradually without the risks involved for the Kurds, Turkey and problems in Syria and Iraq that the U.S. has experienced.

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Arango takes a look back at the history of Iraq- the 400 years of Ottoman rule and the role of Gertrude Bell in defining Iraq's current borders under British rule. Saddam Hussein, Maliki and Islamic State pitted Sunnis against Shiites and Sunnis against Kurds for the last 40 years, leavig a divided country. The current effort to put Iraq together as a country with different faiths and communities under prime minister Abadi will take many years after so much bloodshed. Northern Ireland shows that it can be done after much pain and loss, when all realize putting the past behind is the only way forward.

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Iraq's population is estimated to be 44-46 million, double that of 1997 the last time a census was done in the country. A census is taking place across Iraq to get a better idea of the population. With one Mp for 100,000 people seats in parliament will increase to 450 from 329. Shias share power with Sunnis and Kurds under an arrangement set by the US in 2003.

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The Iraqi cabinet which is a microcosm of the Parliament vote to approve the negotiated agreement with the US. The agreement requires US and coalition forces to withdraw from Iraqi cities and towns by the summer of 2009 and from Iraq by 2011, with a firm date for final withdrawal in 2011. It has the support of Ayatollah Sistani and of all parties, including the Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and secular parties.

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Nour Malas and Joe Parkinson report from the town of Makhmour, retaken by Kurdish Peshmerga forces following airstrikes on ISIS militant positions. The crisis situation 20 miles from Erbil, capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan region and the coordination between Iranian advisors, U.S. military advisors, and the Peshmerga to push back the ISIS. Peshmerga say young Sunnis in the town joined the ISIS in droves, something never seen before. It also reveals the situation after the failure of the Maliki administration to build a state with support from all parts of the Iraqi population- Shiite, Sunni, Kurds and tribes- leading to the radical alienation of Sunnis. The late awakening of Iran, the U.S., and moderate Iraqis both Sunni and Shiite, to the dangers of the Maliki policies. The unraveling of the decade of Iraq rebuilding by the U.S. in such rapid manner leads to the stepping down of Maliki and beginning of a new non-sectarian approach and policies. The vacillating in the Obama adminstration's policies towards Syria and Iraq leads to a lack of direction in the region. ...

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This article by General James Jones is the second from the highest ranks of the Obama administration, saying the entire Middle East policy of U.S. president Obama was flawed and could lead to dangerous consequences. Gen. Jones, former National Security Advisor to Obama 2009-2010, says the situation today is worse than in 1991 when the U.S. launched Operation Provide Comfort to protect Kurdish refugees in Northern Iraq from Saddam Hussein, with an engagement of about 5 years and 25,000 Allied troops. Jones says the crisis in Iraq and Syria is of an order several times worse than 1991 and at any time since the 2003 invasion, as it involves the setup of a terrorist ISIS state in the heart of the Middle East. What went wrong? Jones says all the warnings from other Middle East nations about Maliki's corrupt policy and sectarianism used to stay in power turned to be true. Even Maliki's own advisors and colleagues say in a separate report by Matt Bradley that Maliki battled not for the Iraqi state but only to preserve his own power. Jones calls the U.S. president's decision not to act in Syria when the "red line" of use of chemical weapons was crossed, the failure to maintain a limited military training presence in Iraq after 2011, and not insisting that Mr. Maliki arm the Kurds, as having gravely aggravated the problem in 2014. Jones calls for arming the Kurds directly with sufficient weaponry for defending their region and providing immediate expanded aid to the Abadi government, appointment of a special envoy to ensure direct and immediate communications with Baghdad and with Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite leaders. He calls also for close air support of Iraqi and Kurdish operations, and an aggressive diplomatic effort to unify the Middle Eastern nations to remove ISIS from the region. Jones says this is the right thing to do in the name of all the Iraqi people yearning for peace, for the U.S. service personnel who made sacrifices in Iraq for 23 years, and for U.S. national security....

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The Syrian war started with Arab Spring in 2011 and a popular uprising against the rule by a Alawite minority that came to power in a coup staged by the elder Assad in 1970, says this report on the civil war in Syria. The war dragged out over a decade with the northwest in the control of Kurds, and groups backed by Turkey. Groups backed by Turkey which want to restore Syria to its national origins before the current regime took Homs, Aleppo and Damascus in a week as Iran and Russia withdrew from the country following the war in Ukraine and the Israel conflict with Iran. The US has only a small presence in the country to protect against terrorist groups. One of the effects of the conflict is the flow of migrants to Europe through Hungary into Austria and into Germany during the Merkel years. The opposition to migration that led to the CDU's decline in popularity and to Brexit in Britain started with this flow of migration from North Africa and the Middle East conflicts emerging out of the Arab Spring. In Britain the migration was also from Poland and countries in Eastern Europe.  This led to Reform UK and the Brexit referendum. In the US it led to the Border becoming a major issue in 2016 with migrant surge from Mexico in the last years of Obama's second term.  The collapse of the Venezuelan economy, economic troubles in central America led to another surge in migration in 2021-2023 from these countries making the Border a major issue in the US in 2024, and giving DJT a second term in office in 2025.   ...

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Under a new agreement reached between the new Iraqi government of prime minister Haider al-Abadi and the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, Kurdistan will export 250,000 barrels of oil a day in 2015, and the province of Kirkuk will export 300,000 barrels a day. Exports will be made under the Iraq national oil company, SOMO (State Organization for Marketing of Oil). Kurdistan will get 17% of Iraq's budget expenditure, Kurds will sit on the SOMO board, and Kurdish Peshmerga army will get direct monthly payments from Iraq's budget. Earlier in 2014 talks had broken down under the Maliki government- Kurdistan began exports using a pipeline to Turkey and the Iraqi government cut off budget payments to the Kurdistan Regional Government. Iraq's oil minister Abdul-Mehdi said in Vienna after an OPEC meeting in November that Iraq has set a production target of 3.8 million barrels a day for 2015. This is an increase of 500,000 barrels a day compared to production in Oct. 2014.

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Bradley and Nabhan of the WSJ report from Quara Tepe in Iraq and the weak Iraqi military unable to control parts of the country from attacks by better armed and trained ISIS militants, some from the old Iraqi army before the U.S. invasion and others from the war in Syria. The failure of the Maliki government to bring together Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, as a new election apporaches and Maliki is likely to be elected for a third term. A divided parliament and the lack of U.S. presence after the withdrawal in 2011 at Malik's insistence. The U.S. has refrained from supplying the Iraqi military for fear of aggravating ethnic tensions, with the Sunnis saying Maliki is practicing ethnic cleansing under the guise of fighting terrorism. Under Maliki Iraqi airspace has been used to supply the Assad regime from Iran, according to some reports, making the U.S. wary of supplying the Iraqi military as it has little influence left.

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Turkish decision to conduct operations against Iraqi Kurdistan led to fears in the markets that it would cut off supplies of Iraqi oil. However Turkish premier Erdogan says it would limit its operation to PKK guerillas and its not certain whether this was a way to please public opinion in Turkey that the Government was strong enough to respond to attacks on Turkey or Turkish soldiers and not a real decision to go to war and find itself in difficulties with the US and Iraq. This article shows that Turkey is the largest foreign investor in Iraqi Kurdistan with many projects and a thriving foreign trade there with Turkey. Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey in questions and answers at the National Press Club in Washington DC during the week of November 4th broadcast on CSPAN emphasized that its Iraq move was an "operation" only, no desire on Turkey's part for a war. When asked how it would affect Turkey's south east part he emphasized that many members of Parliament from his party were Kurdish Turks and Turkey had helped large numbers of peshmerga Kurds during Saddam's period and could not understand the Kurdish response. He also emphasized Turkey did not want to touch civilians in Iraqi Kurdistan, which is what the Iraqi Kurds say would lead to their involvement. He emphasized also Turkey's desire to seek a "middle road" in all matters which he described as the best. Have oil prices overreacted to the move by Turkey, or since there is always considerable uncertainty about events in that region (and clarifications come much later after some striking announcement that Turkey would make a strong response), are markets already very sensitive to political volatility especially with stocks lower than usual and rising demand for oil, simply responding to the worst possible outcome....

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Paul Bremer the American in charge on the ground in Iraq issued a decree on May 22, 2003 disbanding the Iraqi army, to extirpate all forms of Saddamism and dismantle the intelligence and command centres of the Iraqi military. This was not part of the original invasion plan according to some reports. Bremer's decision sent many of these officers to fight against the Americans as insurgents, cost American lives and lives of the insurgents effectively turning the invasion into a years long war with hit and run insurgents formerly of the Saddam army. Also effectively destroying or weakening the former elements of Saddam's army. In the process it gave Shiites the first hope of living free of Sunni control and Sunnis who wanted no part of Baathist politics and repression their freedom to exercize their rights, it also brought in the turmoil and lack of security, the bombing of Shiite holy sites by politically motivated Sunni elements and Shiite reprisals, that led to effective partition of the country something a long history of ethnic conflicts and colonialism may have already exacerbated long before the arrival of Americans. The documents of the war planning may suggest that keeping the Iraqi army intact was part of the plan but Bremer could not have issued the decree and had Bush back him up unless Bush and Rumsfeld felt the same way about extirpating Saddamism, seeing it in the way Americans treated Nazis and Nazi instituitons after invading Germany and seeing it the way the Americans saw the Japanese militarists and their institutions after the invasion of Japan. The Baathist treatment of the Kurds, the gas attacks on the Kurds, the destruction of Shia in the marshes after the first American invasion, the repression of Sunni and Shiite, were reminiscent of Nazism and Japanese militarism....

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In the July 22nd Turkish election the Justice and Development party (AK) made big gains in Kurdish areas of Turkey at the expense of the Kurdish party DTP and in local elections next March the AK may win Diyarbakir Kurds unofficial capital in Turkey. Istanbul has 2 million Kurds and is by far the largest Kurdish city. And more ethnic Turks than Turkish Kurds do business in Northern Iraq. Its interesting that the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan pointed to all these facts in his remarks to questions posed at the national Press Club in November 2007 expressing surprise that ths Kurds were responding in the way they were considering his party;'s strong ties with Turkish Kurds. Thus the Kurdish Turkish situation is complex and changing rapidly and from the oil price standpoint Erdogan described the Turkish objective as a operation and not an intent to invade Northern Iraq. These very changes in one of the key areas of the Islamic world point to a rapidly changing world where its not possible to draw conclusions without visiting the issue very carefully and looking for deeper insights beyond superficial observations. zstandpoint Turkey may not be ...

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Scott Anderson of the NYT provides an indepth look at the Arab World and its fragmentation through the eyes of five people from each part of the Arab world- Egyptian, Kurd, Syrian, Iraqi and Jordanian. He says the countries that fell apart are precisely the ones that were formed by the British and the French, and Italy, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire  using divide and rule policies- Britain in Iraq, France in Syria, and Italy in Libya- without much thought given to setting up viable nation states. This is why Iraq has a Sunni-Shia divide, Syria has similar divisions, and Libya with a largely tribal based structure, never really held together after the colonial powers left, and were held together only by strong dictators. Today's problems trace back to these historical events. This is complicated by the largely young demographic and restlessness of the people for change coupled with problems of underdevelopment in education, tribal loyalties, religious loyalties, and lack of political and social structures that could keep the countries together as change and transition to democratic processes took place. The role of the military further complicated matters in Egypt. Even Iran experienced these divisions because of the intervention of the great powers including Russia in Iran since 1900, leading to swings between liberal governments, foreign power supported governments, and a swing back to religious leadership as at present. This is one view of the region, others are presented by Ramadan (Oxford),  Bernard Lewis (Princeton), and leaders in Qatar and Emirates, other experts, some of whom point to the failure in leadership and the elites to find solutions to the problems of underdevelopment, in education, health, infrastructure, and aspirations for a voice in their governance. As the same divisions left by colonial powers affected Asia- in India, China, and Korea, but a larger vision of progress prevailed through crises and difficulties.        ...

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The AKP party loses its parliamentary majority in the 2015 general election. It wins 41% of the vote compared to 50% in the 2011 general election. This gives it 258 seats in the Turkish parliament, compared to 327 seats in the last election. Kurds, liberals and secular Turks were part of the antigovernment protests in 2013. This part of the electorate voted for the Kurdish People's Democratic Party, which won 13% of the vote. The traditional secular party in Turkey won 25% of the vote, giving the opposition to the AKP a combined 38% of the vote. Turnout was 86% for the election. The Kurdish People's Democratic Party is led by a 42 year old human rights lawyer, who told reporters: "As of this hour, the debate about the presidency, the debate about dictatorship, is over. Turkey narrowly averted a disaster."

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Two Syrian cities are among the oldest in the world going back to 3000 BC. They are Aleppo and Damascus. This is close to when Varanasi on the Ganges in India was settled. Aleppo is older than Damascus.  The only European city that comes close is Plovdiv, Bulgaria, says this report in The Guardian. Most of the Syrian region is populated by Syrian Sunnis about 75% and there are Christian, 10%, Shia Alawite 11%, and other minorities in Syria.  The Syrian Civil War 2011-2024 destroyed most of the old city of Aleppo. Syria has 110 miles of Mediterranean coastline, mountains along the coastline and and area inland of wheat cultivation along the Euphrates river and the Syrian desert near Iraq in the east, Turkey to the north with Kurds in that area, and Jordan in the south. The Ottoman Turks ruled from 1516 to 1918. In 1920 a French Mandate was setup in Syria till 1943. Following the Second World War Syria was an independent nation and briefly joined Egypt in the UAR United Arab Republic.  ...

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This WSJ Editorial Board opinion says president Biden needs to get European partners to make key decisions at the G-7 meeting to support Ukraine.  On the level of support it says the US has contributed 42.7 billion euros in military and humanitarian assistance compared to only 27.2 billion euros from European Union countries, according to the Kiel Institute for World Economy. Cpuld the EU do more? Russia continues to keep frontline nations such as Estonia and Lithuania on edge. The NATO support force has only 40,000 allied soldiers- more like a tripwire defense and clearly inadequate says WSJ. This needs to expand to a significant force. Separately from this NATO's Stoltenberg has announced that the NATO Response Force will now be expanded to 300,000. Mr. Erdogan needs to be persuaded to let Finland and Sweden join NATO to strengthen Baltic area defenses. WSJ says Erdogan is facing a tough election in 2023 and is objecting not because Turkish Kurds pose a threat at this time but to rouse nationalist sentiment for the election. WSJ Editorial does not mention what is critical for Ukraine's people, the refugees of women and children to return home and live normal lives - the stopping of missile attacks on civilian population and buildings. Separately Mr. Biden has announced that he will be sending Advanced Missile Defense Systems to Ukraine. Germany is sending an IRIS missile defense system that covers a space of 40 square miles enough to defend cities like Kviv and Lviv, Kharkiv. Here the question is how soon as this needs to be taken up immediately to protect the lives of the civilians caught up in this war, the women and children of Ukraine. Some are returning to their homes in Kviv, Kharkiv, other cities, that are already damaged, and are facing more missile attacks. This is the most difficult aspect of the war and hope can only return when this is prevented. It would also set the beginning conditions for the end of the war by removing this element of the war for the people of Ukraine and their homes and lives.   ...

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Iraq is only spending one percent of its $80 billion in oil revenues generated each year on repairing roads, bridges and other infrastructure. The reason for this and the extreme nature of the situation is because Iraq has shortage of trained staff, extremely weak procurement and budgeting systems with computerization and electronic currency movements and financial check clearing house as one sees in modern states in Europe or in Asia are nonexistent here and stacks of cash have to be moved around to finance projects. The violence and sectarian strife complicate the situation further with little agreement on wehere the money should be spent. On the positive side all these revenues mean money will be available for reconstruction on a big scale once the politicians and political groups among the Sunnis and the Shiites and the Kurds can get together and this should help to restore normal life in the country.

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One of the favorable factors for Iraq in recent years was the surge in oil production, adding 1 million barrels a day to reach 3.3 million barrels a day. It surged to an average of 3.7 million barrels a day in December 2014 after a deal with the Kurdish region in northern Iraq for an additional 550,000 barrels a day in exchange for Kurds getting a 17% share of federal revenues. This helped Iraq overcome other problems. The drop in oil prices has led to a 40% drop in revenues and the invasion by Islamic State in a loss of some production.The federal budget of $101 billion planned revenues is based on an oil price of $56 and exports of 3.3 million barrels a day, resulting in a $20 billion deficit. It assumes $10 billion in new tax revenues which may be hard to achieve with a lack of strong central government. Experts on Iraq's oil industry say large investments are needed to offset declining oil production from older oil fields in southern Iraq. Oil exports were 2.5 million barrels a day in 2014, and experts say even this will be hard to achieve for 2015. Investments could come from western oil companies, but Iraq and the Kurdistan region are behind in payments to oil companies. Iraq is considering issuing bonds for $10-$15 billion....

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William Galston points out in this piece in the WSJ that U.S. president Obama's Syria-Iraq policy has lost credibility with the American public. He cites CNN/ORC polls showing rising concern among Americans about terrorism even 1 year before the San Bernardino attacks, at 55% saying that this was likely increasing to 61% in the week before San Bernardino attack, with fears about terrorists being in the U.S. increasing to 81%. As a result only 38% of the American public in a CNN/ORC poll at the beginning of December 2015 approved of president Obama's handling of terrorism, with 68% saying that the U.S. military response is insufficient. A major shift has also taken place on the use of ground troops with Americans favoring use of ground troops by 53% to 45% in the current situation. Here Galston points out the shortcomings of Obama's military response in not conducting an effective use of the military response from the air in setting up safe zones and coordinating efforts with the Kurds and other forces....