Renad Mansour, Contributor
Renad Mansour is a senior research fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House and the project director of its Iraq Initiative.
Christine van den Toorn, Contributor
Christine van den Toorn is the Director of IRIS. She has over 10 years of academic and professional experience in the Middle East, 6 of which have been spent in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). She has conducted fieldwork all over the KRI, with a particular focus on disputed territories in Ninewa, Diyala and Salahddin, and has published articles and reports in leading publications like Iraq Oil Report, Inside Iraqi Politics, Daily Beast and Niqash as well as delivered talks on her research. Ms. van den Toorn has also conducted baseline reports and social impact assessments for international oil companies operating in the KRI and disputed territories, working with teams of student researchers from AUIS. She served in the United States Peace Corps in Morocco and holds an MA in Middle East History from the University of Virginia, and taught the subject at AUIS for 4 years. Ms. van den Toorn speaks Arabic, which she studied at Middlebury College, Georgetown University, the University of Damascus in Syria and the French Institute for Near East Studies in Damascus.
Thanassis Cambanis, Senior Fellow and Director of Century International
Thanassis Cambanis is an author, journalist, and director of Century International. His work focuses on U.S. foreign policy, Arab politics, and social movements in the Middle East.
TCF World Podcast: Iraq after the Kurdish referendum
The Kurdish drive for independence has foundered and Iraq has reestablished control over disputed areas. Ethnic strains remain, and political divisions are flaring within Iraq’s major communities.
How much control does Iran really have over Iraq? Can Iraqi prime minister Haidar al-Abadi maintain his balancing act, keeping Iran and the United States both on his side, and avoiding dangerous strongman overreach?
We speak in Beirut with Renad Mansour, a research fellow at Chatham House, and Christine van den Toorn, director of the Institute of Regional and International Studies at American University of Iraq, Sulaimani.
Participants include:
Tags: iran, iraq, kurds, Podcast