Word: iraqi
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...Rather than clarifying Iraq's political future as American combat forces plan to withdraw in the summer, the election appears to have yielded another period of political uncertainty. Until now, Iraqi politicians have managed to hold things together by deferring decisions on some of the toughest points of contention, such as the status of Kirkuk - the oil-rich northern city coveted by the autonomous Kurdish region, a claim fiercely resisted by the Arab majority, first and foremost the Sunnis who live in the area - and the mechanisms for sharing the country's oil wealth. Cobbling together a new ruling coalition...
...Although Maliki's and Allawi's blocs both articulate a message of Iraqi national unity over ethnic or sectarian loyalties, the political contest is still fueled by the unresolved struggle over power and resources between rival communities. That contest echoes a regional power struggle, with Iraq's predominantly Sunni neighbors such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria supporting a greater share of power for Iraq's Sunnis. Allawi's list of candidates includes some of the key Sunni political players, and the self-styled strongman makes no secret of his desire to challenge Iranian influence in Baghdad. Iran would prefer...
...Hussein, Iraq's Arab neighbors had long looked to his regime to serve as a regional bulwark against Iranian influence in the Middle East, and supported his eight-year war against the Islamic Republic in the 1980s. The U.S. invasion removed that bulwark, and Iran has profited greatly from Iraqi democracy. The governments elected since Saddam's overthrow have been uniformly friendly toward Tehran and dominated by Shi'ite parties. While none of these governments have been a proxy for Iran, they have certainly been resistant to being drawn into anti-Iran regional power games...
...continues on a path toward stability, independence and democracy, or plunges back into the kind of vicious civil warfare from which it has just emerged. Previous American-sponsored elections produced a series of sectarian and ethnic leaders who proved unable to resolve fundamental issues regarding the future of the Iraqi state - from the sharing of oil revenue, to the boundaries of disputed territories and the balance of power between the central government and the regions. And when gridlock in Baghdad was at its worst, the country went up in flames...
...final composition of the government will determine the future direction of the Iraqi state - whether it becomes more centralized in the hands of the Baghdad government, or whether power is devolved to the regions, especially the Shi'ite-dominated south and the Kurdish north. Those pushing centralization include Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shi'ite dominated State of Law coalition, and the ideologically similar, but more Sunni and more secular, Iraqiya coalition, led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Pushing for decentralization are the ruling parties of the Kurdistan Regional Government - the Kurdish enclave of northern Iraq...