Turkey is sending a message that its armed forces are still a strong and capable fighting force, despite large-scale purges of officers of the highest ranks.
To win the argument and battle for the Kurdistan state, it is more important to win the support of the Kurdish people than to win the consent of the superpowers.
The Mosul operation marks the return of US forces to Iraq after their 2011 withdrawal. What would a long term stability in Mosul need?
An interview with the director of The Confession, Moazzam Begg’s story commissioned by BBC Storyville and the BFI - one of the most resonant modern stories for our times.
Turkey is already shouldering the greatest portion of the burden for Syrian refugees. It should temper its approach regarding Mosul accordingly.
The liberation of Mosul, backed up by Sunni powers, themselves backed up by western powers, will only add to the general feeling of injustice experienced by Shias and will only benefit Iran and its conspiracy theories.
The current security situation in Iraq is likely to worsen if the abuses of civilians by Shia militias within the PMF are not officially recognised and appropriately responded to.
Whatever else they were guilty of, the two authors of the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, George Bush and Tony Blair, displayed an astonishing ignorance of history.
As life goes on in Baghdad, plans need to be put in place to make people’s lives more bearable. Planning should not wait until the war ends, because in Baghdad, as in much of Iraq, war is now the new normal.
The question before Masoud Barzani is what to do in order to turn state-building rhetoric into a future Kurdish state.
The past 13 years have seen successive calls for former UK premier Tony Blair to be prosecuted for his part in the Iraq war. Has the Chilcot Report strengthened the potential legal case against him?
