Fast forward to today. ISIS is mostly gone (hooray!), but the problems it created are still there. The government in Baghdad is famously corrupt. I mean, “losing billions of dollars in ‘mysterious theft’ ” corrupt. It’s like hiring a raccoon to guard your trash cans.
The economy is heavily oil-dependent, so when oil prices drop, the country sneezes. Unemployment is high, especially among young people. A bored, broke 22-year-old is a lot more likely to join a militia than a book club.
And the Kurds? They held a independence referendum in 2017. The central government said, “Absolutely not,” and sent troops to take back disputed oil fields. It was like a messy, armed sibling war over the TV remote—except the remote controls billions of dollars.
France Plans to Ship Arms to Embattled Kurdish Forces in Iraq - The New
The “Trickle-Down” Effect of Neighbors
You can’t talk about Iraq without mentioning Iran and the U.S. They’re like two exes who keep showing up to the same party. Iran has deep influence through militias and politics. The U.S. has troops and diplomatic pressure.
When the U.S. and Iran get into a stare-down (like in 2026 with the drone strike on General Soleimani), guess where the staring happens? Yep, Iraq. It’s like the two biggest kids in school having a fight in your backyard.
Meanwhile, Turkey is also poking its nose in, bombing Kurdish groups in northern Iraq. So even the “peaceful” parts of Iraq are never truly quiet. It’s conflict a la carte—pick your flavor, they’ve got it.
