Great article! It does not, however, mention the Assyrians which is a bit of omission when talking about Iraq. The Assyrians ruled pretty much the whole region for a bit until they were supplanted by the Persians. Even more interesting to me at least is the fact that the Christian Assyrian Church of the East, formed by the Apostle Thomas was the first Christian church. According to
this link they view this as their second "Golden Age" in which Assyrian culture, and the Christian religion was spread by their priests as far as China and Mongolia. Their culture was suppressed by the Arabs in the 13th century and their religion largely replaced but I bet there are still a whole bunch of Assyrians who do not consider themselves "Arabs" by any stretch of the imagination. The link, and the whole site is well worth a read although I have no info of the veracity of the facts on it.