Iraq

The different scenes in Baghdad tell the tale of a future that will, at the very least, present serious challenges, and at the worst could become chronically violent.

From Morocco to Afghanistan, the scholars and experts at MEI take a closer look at how the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is affecting the Middle East.

Recent developments are making it increasingly difficult for the months-old protest movement to sustain its momentum.

The story from Iraq since last October has been mainly one of uplifting hope, as mass protests sweep across the country in a fight against corruption, nepotism, and bad governance. But what of the places left behind and ignored? For most of its modern history, Iraq has been embroiled in sectarianism and conflict, most recently with the rise of ISIS. The country has celebrated its ability to fight ISIS and take back the areas the group controlled between 2013 and 2017, but for those that remain in the most vulnerable liberated areas, life is precarious and dangerous, with underserviced communities living in the most dire of conditions.

Washington’s foreign relations in the Middle East are often characterized by ebb and flow, tracking the region’s dynamic politics. But when it comes to Iraq, this ebb and flow is especially turbulent, and the country’s energy sector has been thrown under the spotlight as Washington presses Baghdad to take swift action to ensure its “energy independence” from Iran.

The United States has missed a valuable opportunity to use its influence in Iraq to encourage the government to implement the reforms Iraqi protesters have been demanding over the past six months and push back on Iran.

On March 1, Iraqi PM designate Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi announced that he had failed to form a new government to replace the current caretaker one headed by PM Adel Abdul-Mahdi. In the post-Saddam era, government formation in Iraq has always been a complicated process, but this is the first time since 2003 that a PM designate failed to form a government and the episode has revealed fundamental deficiencies in the Iraqi political process.

The U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force commander, along with the deputy chair of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, altered the political balance in Iraq. But the killings took place against a wider backdrop of political unrest and protests that forced the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi at the end of 2019. With Iraq potentially headed for early elections,the country is set for significant changes as political actors vie for a seat at the table. U.S. and coalition forces in the region will inevitably be affected, and the coming months will determine the future of both Iranian proxies and the coalition presence in Iraq.

If OPEC’s history is anything to go by, everyone suffers from an oil price war.

The country’s political parties now move to a new stage of repeating the crisis of the last few months, to nominate a new PM-designate.

Lebanese and Iraqi protesters have faced an uphill battle drawing global media attention since Arab Spring-like uprisings erupted in both countries last October. Coverage of the protests has been dwarfed by other major international news stories running concurrently with the uprisings, such as Brexit and the Hong Kong protests. The main implication of low coverage has been a lack of sustained international pressure on Lebanese or Iraqi political leaders to accommodate protester demands for wholesale systematic changes.

The history of Erbil’s citadel reads like a cinematic epic worthy of Cecil B. DeMille

Possibly one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited human settlements, the citadel is built on a series of archaeological layers crowned by Ottoman-era houses. It may have been the site of a temple to Ishtar, was an important center of Nestorian Christianity, and survived both the 13th-century Mongol invasion and an 18th-century siege by Nader Shah. It was home to the Medians and the Assyrians (who called it Arbela), Muslims and Jews, and has housed Sufi shrines and displaced squatters. Its mound-like form has been shaped by successive generations of inhabitants and invaders who simply built on top of the rubble of their predecessors.

Allawi’s promises notwithstanding, there will be tough jostling among the parties over ministries, and more street protests and violence in the weeks ahead.