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Has the Kurdish Moment in Iran Passed?
In the early days of the Iran war, there was serious discussion about deploying Iranian Kurdish armed groups as a ground force alongside the air campaign. That discussion coincided with…
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Arivan
Iraq’s Oil Exports Collapsed by 82% in March as SOMO Scrambles to Build Emergency Alternatives
The war’s first full month wiped out most of Iraq’s seaborne export capacity. The patchwork of fallback routes Baghdad assembled kept some revenue flowing, but March’s earnings covered less than…
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Arivan
Bombed by Both Sides, Iraq Faces a War That Could Unravel It From Within
The map of Iraq since February 28 shows three overlapping wartime geographies layered inside one state. Anti-PMF strikes have spread across Anbar, Nineveh, Kirkuk, Salah al-Din, Baghdad and Babil. Iranian…
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Arivan
Iraq’s Government Deadlock Has Produced Two Cross-Sectarian Camps Fighting Over One Session
Iraq’s parliament has scheduled a session on 11 April to elect a president, after a late-March signature drive claiming more than 220 MPs forced the question into the open. If…
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Arivan
Why Iran’s Kurds Are the Most Divided Kurdish Population
The Kurds of Iran are the most internally divided Kurdish population across all four parts of Kurdistan. Dialect, sect, geography, and five centuries inside an Iranian state have produced a…
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Arivan
Deterrence, Division, and Decay: How Iran Politically Contains Iranian Kurdish Armed Groups
Iran’s strategy toward Iranian Kurdish armed groups is not built around concessions. It is built around political deterrence, selective differentiation, and the exploitation of organizational weakness. This political layer sat…
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Arivan
The Logic Behind Iraq’s Militia Strike Campaign
Since 28 February 2026, US and Israeli airstrikes have hit positions belonging to at least fifteen PMF-affiliated militias across seven Iraqi governorates, from the Syrian border to the Nineveh Plain.…
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Arivan
Airstrikes Target Iraq’s Disputed Territories and Sunni Heartland, Not the Shia-Dominated South
From Jurf al-Sakhar and Baghdad to al-Qaim, Mosul, Kirkuk, and Tuz Khurmatu, the strike campaign has widened sharply since late February. But even as it has expanded, it still concentrates…
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Arivan
Why Iran’s Sunni Kurdish Islamists Are Not Joining the Anti-Regime War
One of the misleading assumptions on the Iran war is that the Sunni Kurdish belt should naturally drift toward any project aimed at weakening the Islamic Republic. On paper, that…
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