From Radek Sikorski, Foreign Affairs:  Our relations with Russia, like yours, are pragmatic but brittle.

From George Friedman, Stratfor:  On a personal level, my relationship with Europe always passes through the prism of NATO.

The month of April marked the tenth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, the third provincial election of the post-Saddam era—the country’s first without the presence of US troops—and seven years since a relatively unknown Nouri al-Maliki emerged as the prime minister of Iraq. Nevertheless, after a period of relatively low violence and another election added to Iraq’s nascent democratic experiment, the country is entering the most unstable period since it plunged into a sectarian civil war (2005-07) during the height of the insurgency.

Atlantic Council Managing Director James Joyner published a piece in The National Interest on deciding the outcome of the Iraq War.

Please join the Atlantic Council’s Patriciu Eurasia Center on April 8 for a public discussion on Energy Resources in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq with the Minister of Natural Resources Dr. Ashti Hawrami.

Anna Borshchevskaya, assistant director with the Council's Patriciu Eurasia Center, provided analysis in two commentaries published in OE Watch:

• Armenia's Importance in Russia's Strategic Calculations (page 63)
• Massoud Barzani's Visit to Russia, and the Moscow-Erbil-Baghdad Triangle (page 65)

From David Enders, McClatchy:  Two Syrian rebel groups – one seeking an elected civil government, the other favoring the establishment of a religious state – are battling each other in the city of Tal Abyad

Ten years ago this month, the United States launched Operation Iraqi Freedom against Saddam Hussein.