It's October 2003. Saddam Hussein’s regime has fallen. For six months, Baghdad has been occupied by American forces.

Both countries cite historical aggression for their ongoing enmity, but there is no real justification for the hostility, beyond chest-beating, says Carl Bildt

Searches for expensive life-sized sex dolls, information on Germany’s gay scene, lingerie, extreme violence, and Latin Masses are among some of the websites blocked by the Oireachtas security system in the past 12 months.

Harmless websites such as YouTube, several newspaper websites, and Dublin pubs and restaurants are among some of the surprising victims of the Houses of the Oireachtas strict firewall.

Bangor-born blogger Jonny Blair has been travelling the world since 2003.

It would be mackerel stupid to believe that the international campaign to expel Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait in 1990 was undertaken, at vast expense in lives, treasure, and political-system capital, to defend democracy — or for what then passed, and still does, for democracy in the Middle East. There was other, far more lucrative skin in that game.

George H.W. Bush was the last person elected president of the United States with any prior foreign policy experience.

Far from the madding crowd, deep in the caverns of the birthplace of the once great bastion of altruistic volunteerism that was the GAA, a room full of megalomaniacs congregated.

Salone del Moblile in Milan is the world’s interior forum and it’s emphasis on texture this year has placed fabrics to the fore in any new decorative scheme, writes Carol O’Callaghan.

Now that elite pathway has been closed off, there are fears the women described by F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo as ‘fast girls’ will be condemned to the slow lane, writes Larry Ryan

A 7.3 magnitude earthquake near the Iraq-Iran border has killed more than 400 people and sent residents fleeing their homes into the night, authorities said.

The two countries should hold bilateral talks and air their historic grievances, or else the mistrust will deepen, says Christopher R Hill

The West’s failure to support Kurdish independence will condemn this people to further oppression by hostile forces, writes Shlomo Avineri.

US-backed Iraqi forces have launched a multi-pronged assault to retake the town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, marking the next phase in the country's war against Islamic State.

If you remove the vestige and emblems of the past, do you erase the memory of what they represented too? asks Clodagh Finn

The High Court has blocked a bid by a former chief of staff of the Iraqi army to bring a private prosecution against Tony Blair over the Iraq War.

John Chilcot has said he does not believe Tony Blair was "straight with the nation" about his decisions in the run-up to the Iraq War.

The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, which happened just after midnight on Tuesday.

ANY book written about the Syrian civil war can only, sadly, be a a sad book. And this book is no exception.

Evidence suggests Assad was behind this week’s chemical weapons attack. Leaders are saying it is a redline issue but Western powers are at a loss to respond, says Peter Apps

While most of the world has agreed to destroy these deadly weapons, the attack in Syria this week shows the urgency of the situation, writes Caroline Alexander

Unforeseen social events, such as the global economic crisis of 2008, the election of Donald Trump in the US, Brexit in the UK, and fake news have undermined our faith in what is true, but some opinions are better-informed than others, writes Clodagh Finn

Gunmen have kidnapped an Iraqi journalist after breaking into her Baghdad home.

There is a long history of the CIA briefing presidents-elect on foreign policy. Donald Trump has rebuffed the agency’s advice. Tim Weiner asks why

The CIA has reportedly concluded that Russia intervened in the US election to help Donald Trump win.

Iraq has executed 36 men convicted of taking part in the IS group’s massacre of hundreds of soldiers in 2014, officials said.

The American military and industrial complex needs a new enemy to justify its massive budget and Vladimir Putin is the right person at the right time, argues Peter Van Buren.

Richard N Haass says the Chilcot Report should be widely read because the Iraq War was costly enough without people learning the wrong lessons from it

In an update to her weekly column, Victoria White, argues that we can never come to the beginning of the end of atrocities such as Nice if we don't understand that Bastille Day doesn't mean the same thing to many Arabs as it does to the French.

Former British prime minister, Tony Blair, has expressed “regret” that he did not challenge intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction.

Tony Blair has voiced “more sorrow, regret, and apology than you may ever know or can believe” for his role in the invasion of Iraq.

In his long-awaited report, John Chilcot has delivered a restrained yet devastating critique of former British prime minister Tony Blair’s decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003.

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