Safaa Khalaf is an Iraqi investigative journalist and independent researcher. He has published books on politics and culture. His works have been translated into English, French, German, Spanish, and Persian. He worked with the London School of Economics (LSE) and the Arab Reform Initiative. He is the recipient of the European Union Award for Press Freedom – Samir Kassir 2022, and the Kurt Schurk Award for Journalistic Courage from the Thomson Reuters Foundation 2018. and the Naseej Award by the French Agency for Media Cooperation (CFI) in 2017. In 2019, he published his most important book, “Post-ISIS Iraq – The Crisis of Overoptimism.”