NEXT WEEK: Join us online on 11/12, 11 AM, the day after parliamentary elections in #Iraq, for a conversation with Alissa Walter & Marsin Alshamary on how ordinary Iraqis negotiate with state officials, militias, & political parties to survive & assert their rights. Register now:

Israelis repeatedly warned the Bush administration that invading Iraq would be a disaster.

Elizabeth Tsurkov, a citizen of Israel and Russia, recounts a harrowing story of cruelty, survival, U.S. diplomatic pressure and, finally, release from the grip of a group backed by Iran. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/w...

"The stakes in the upcoming elections are high – both for Iraq’s stability and for a wider region reeling from turmoil." @shivanfazil.bsky.social 1001iraqithoughts.com/2025/11/05/i...

The Academic Research Institute in Iraq (TARII) online conference call for abstracts deadline has been extended until November 10th. Anyone interested in participating should email their proposals to conveners Pietro Menghini, Kiki Santing, and Peter Wien.

I was excited to receive my copy of @amir-moosavi.bsky.social's book this week!

Until we face every era’s crimes—not just Assad’s—true reckoning in Syria is impossible. Justice demands we confront all who built this tyranny ⬇️

🎥 Missed our 2025 Oversight Research Award presentation? Prof. Leavitt of Smith College joined us to discuss how congressional #oversight evolved during the Trump administration and what those lessons reveal about the resilience of democratic institutions. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLvm...

TOMORROW!

CNN's Clarissa Ward tracked down and confronted a top advisor to former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who held American journalist Austin Tice after his capture in 2012. "Of course, Austin is dead. Austin is dead," he said in a video captured on hidden cameras. www.cnn.com/2025/10/28/politi...

"He cautioned that original documents tied to the programme may have been lost or destroyed, whether deliberately by regime remnants or previously by the regime itself, or due to fighting in numerous areas near labs, depots, or military units..." english.enabbaladi.net/archives/202...

This article should be titled the "Murder of USAID."

Another valuable former Wilson Center project finds a new institutional home that is safe from vandals. "This two-year project builds on the foundations of the Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding, which started at the Wilson Center in 2011." @csis.org www.csis.org/news/csis-la...

Another twist in the afterlife of "Ba'th vs. Ba'th." "A controversial reference to Iraq’s former president Saddam Hussein as a 'heroic martyr' in newly revised Syrian textbooks sparked widespread criticism and confusion." shafaq.com/en/Middle-Ea...

RSVP NOW! Prof. Claire Leavitt (Smith College) is the recipient of our 2025 Award for Excellence in Oversight Research for “I’ll be the Oversight: Lessons from the (First) Trump Era." She will present her award-winning paper on Oct. 30 from 12:15–1:30 PM ET. us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

This misleading statement buries or rather occludes the lede, which is that the original records & digital copy sent back to the Kadhimi government in 2020 "went missing," an entirely foreseeable & even predictable development. www.hoover.org/news/hoover-...

Lisa Blaydes et Samuel Helfont (eds.) - Ba‘thist Iraq Through Archives Reflections, Explorations, and Opportunities À paraître en juin aux Stanford UP

"A single sentence by US President Donald Trump during a summit on Gaza in Sharm El-Sheikh unexpectedly shifted the focus to Iraq: 'Iraq is a country full of oil… but it doesn’t know what to do with it. That’s your problem.'" shafaq.com/en/Report/Ba...

"An official from the ICRC said Wednesday that more than 52,000 Iraqi & around 12,000 Iranian soldiers have remained missing, nearly four decades since the end of the eight-year-long bloody war between the two neighboring countries." @rudawenglish.bsky.social www.rudaw.net/english/midd...

Prof. Claire Leavitt at @smithcollege is the recipient of our 2025 Award for Excellence in Oversight Research for “I’ll be the Oversight: Lessons from the (First) Trump Era." She will present her award-winning paper on Oct. 30 from 12:15–1:30 PM ET. RSVP! us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Congrats @robert-yee.bsky.social on the publication of "The City's Defense: The Bank of England & the Remaking of Economic Governance, 1914-1939" by @universitypress.cambridge.org! www.cambridge.org/core/books/c...

"Michael Kimmage further relates his experience of serving as director of the Kennan Institute, a program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, which was liquidated in January 2025 by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency..." www.niskanencenter.org/reflections-...

Six years after the U.S. helped bring it down, Islamic State has resurged in Syria, bringing killings, extortion and fear.

"In 2023, while Bashar al-Assad was still in power, these ships were quietly transferred to an offshore company in the Seychelles for the symbolic price of one dollar each." syrianobserver.com/syrian-actor...

This event is open to the public. @smithcollege.bsky.social @northamptonma.bsky.social

This has been in the works for a while & will be well worth the wait. @princetonupress.bsky.social also has Michael A. Reynolds's highly anticipated 2nd book, which is about Enver Pasha!

After DOGE miscreants scuttled this event at the Wilson Center in April, it is great that "Artifact War" is being shown at Smith College tomorrow & will also feature the originally planned discussion between @stevenhyde.bsky.social and Amr al-Azm.

A forthcoming book, out with Stanford University Press this fall, which I’m looking forward to reading: “Political Undesirables: Citizenship, Denaturalization, and Reclamation in Iraq.” #MiddleEastStudies

It is nice to see that the Sherwin Fellowship has found a new institutional home at CUNY Graduate Center, where it will hopefully always be safe from DOGE and any similar variety of juvenile vandals!

I had the pleasure of reading a draft: it’s outstanding!!!

"Iraq has struggled to maintain a sufficient power grid for decades. The Gulf War damaged Iraqi infrastructure and wiped out 75% of the electricity supply, according to ScienceDirect." borgenproject.org/iraqs-energy...

This really is a contrived comparison. Trump may wish he had the power stemming from a decade of presiding over the security services and a ruling single party, although he does and will not. Dubious right wing "lawfare" is a long way from torture and firing squads, thankfully.

It’s being read by someone named Tom Campbell. If you click on his name, you can hear samples of the other books he has narrated. Sounds pretty good to me! www.audible.com/pd/The-Iraq-...

I am happy to announce the publication of my latest book The Iraq Wars: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press). amazon.com/Iraq-Wars-Shor… An audio-book version is scheduled for release in December.

Very proud to have a chapter examining Kurdish and Iraqi attempts to claim human rights violations in the '90s in "Ba'thist Iraq Through Archives," coming June 2026 from @stanfordpress.bsky.social, edited by @samuelhelfont.bsky.social & @lisablaydes.bsky.social www.sup.org/books/histor...

Exclusive: Assad government secretly moved mass grave to cover up killings, Reuters investigation finds reut.rs/4nYthdq

The United States needs to pressure Israel “to adhere to a course that promotes regional stability rather than undermines it,” argue @joosthiltermann.bsky.social and @natashahall.bsky.social. “Otherwise, this latest deal could turn into yet another failed U.S.-led peace initiative.”

"Nadia Cohen, the spy’s widow, told Ynet: 'The Mossad isn’t familiar with this story, and it isn’t known to them that he’s being returned.'" @timesofisrael.com www.timesofisrael.com/spy-eli-cohe...

"Yet despite its scale, the war remains relatively underrepresented among studies of large-scale combat operations (LSCO), particularly when compared with the 1973 Yom Kippur War or 1991’s Operation Desert Storm. It should not be." mwi.westpoint.edu/not-just-des...

Trump's often repeated "big fish" story about General Dan Caine obscures the fact that his first administration largely inherited and continued to follow the campaign plan for Operation Inherent Resolve. The 3-5 year timeline was from 2015. Baghuz fell in March 2019.

The Palestine Branch: A den of torture in Assad’s Syria

"His chief associate and friend in the Middle East was Saddam Hussein, whom he met in 1972 after Iraq’s oil industry was nationalized." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/b...

My latest piece for the Institute for Future Conflict at the United States Air Force Academy discusses the importance of Assad regime archives and efforts to preserve them. I draw some parallels with the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq War & toppling of Saddam's regime. www.ifc.usafa.edu/articles/dig...

A sign that it is election season in Iraq... english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5...

The war that was supposed to ignite the region instead exposed Iran’s limits.

As the U.S. mission in Iraq winds down further, regional actors are taking note. Listen here: warontherocks.com/ep...

📢 Missed the talk live? Watch Dr. Salah Aziz presenting on the history of Kurdish Studies in the U.S. during the 1990s. youtu.be/9oWhBkVkEIo

New today for War on the Rocks members: The Iraq Transition: What Comes After America’s Exit? warontherocks.com/ca...

I was grateful to be invited by Nicole Wiley to join the @warontherocks.bsky.social Warcast Podcast to discuss Operation Inherent Resolve and the future of US-Iraq relations.

I reckon Ba'thist Iraq is one of the most interesting episodes in late 20th century history and the regime archives are an incredible resource. So I'm very excited about this book coming out!