Introduction At no time since the founding of the modern nation of Iraq in 1921 hasthe country faced a greater set of deep-seated and intractable challengesto its fragile state–society relations. In June 2014 the Sunni Arab terror-ist network known in English as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)conducted a series of highly coordinated and brazen attacks across part
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Twelve months of high drama in Iraqi politics finally ended on October 27, with the investiture of a new government headed by Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani. Two weeks prior, the Iraqi parliament elected Abdul Latif Rashid as the country’s president following his nomination by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) to succeed Barham Salih of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Thes
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The populist Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who led the Shia Islamist Sadrist bloc to a shock victory in the October 2021 elections, prompted heightened political instability in the country in 2022 by announcing his withdrawal from both the process of forming the next government and from Iraqi politics in general. Sadr’s decision to send his followers to invade Iraq’s parliament
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On December 9, 2017, the prime minister of Iraq, Haider al-Abadi, said: ‘We have accomplished a very difficult mission. Our heroes have reached the final strongholds of Daesh [Islamic State] and purified it.’ Many argued that this moment, following the defeat of the last remnants of Islamic State in Iraq, would usher in a rebuilding and ‘post-conflict’ stage for the country.
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Politicians have failed to form a new government nearly a year after the last elections. Baghdad just saw its worst militia clashes in years. And despite vast oil wealth, the state can’t provide basic services. BAGHDAD — On most days in the Iraqi capital, jackhammers and electric drills provide the soundtrack to a construction boom, with multistory restaurants taking shape a
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