Defense & Intelligence Policy, Business and Technology

Is Iraq's Most Important Battle in Baghdad?

Foreign Policy: When it comes to Iraq, the world’s attention has largely focused on the military campaign to uproot the Islamic State from its strongholds in Anbar province and Mosul. But the most consequential fight for the country’s future may be playing out in Baghdad’s Green Zone, not with bullets and bombs, but amid an unanswered cry for political reform to a deeply dysfunctional and sectarian state.

The Obama administration’s plan to defeat the Islamic State relies in part on maintaining a reliable political partner in the form of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who has so far struggled against vested interests to push through his plans to overhaul the government and fix what is widely decried as a sectarian free-for-all among Iraqi politicians.

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