Daniel Serwer

Anbar is the virtually 100 percent Sunni Arab province of Iraq that resisted the American invasion in 2003-2004, gave birth to the Awakening movement that fought with the Americans against al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2006-2007, wanted American bases to remain in Iraq, hosted peaceful mass protests against Nuri al-Maliki’s government in 2013, and largely fell to the Islamic State (ISIS) and its Ba‘thist allies starting in 2014.

Erbil—the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan—was once a chaotic and dusty backwater. Today, it is well on its way to becoming an attractive and orderly commercial and government center.