Iraq's Forgotten Tale: The American Promise

Iraqi Political Instability in the 21^st Century (2003-2011)

Written by Lorenzo Rosi and Luca Gerlinger

On April 9, 2003, the televisions of all the Western world were fixed on Firdos Square, Baghdad. On every screen from San Francisco to London, a jubilant crowd of Iraqis was assisting as American Marines tore down the statue of Saddam Hussein. People were hitting the base of the monument with a sledgehammer, trying to bring it down themselves. The face of the dictator was covered with an American flag, shortly after substituted by the crowd with an Iraqi one. A chain had been wrapped around its neck, pulled by an M88 armored vehicle. When the statue was finally forced off its plinth, its arm, once swept outwards to the future, was left pointing towards the ground. The crowd exploded in jubilation. The war was won, Iraq was free.

Or at least, this is what our screens were showing. Away from the cameras, just hundreds of meters from the square, Baghdad was in chaos. Iraqi soldiers and militias were still fighting American forces in the capital, all while the first violent groups had begun to take advantage of the mayhem, looting government buildings and banks. In the rest of the country, militias and rebels were either taking up arms or had never ceased firing in the first place: the beginning (or the continuation) of a war that would never stop. In Firdos Square as well, reports suggest that what was being shown was mostly staged: the crowd’s size was exaggerated by the media and the whole spectacle was more an American initiative than a spontaneous display of joy from the Iraqi people.

Whatever was happening on that day, the view of Saddam’s image in pieces in his own capital was enough for the world to turn its eyes elsewhere. The history of Iraq, however, did not end on April 9, 2003: it drastically changed. The following 20 years would see the immense struggle of a country to rebuild itself, amidst instability, corruption, ethnic and religious divisions, and civil war. To the Western public, this story became somewhat known only when 130 people lost their lives in Paris, on November 13, 2015, at the hands of Islamic State (IS) terrorists; the same forces against whom the Iraqi army had been fighting for 10 years, and only one of the factions that had torn the country apart in previous years. 

Our aim is to tell this story, one which was long ignored by the media and public. Our analysis will be divided in two parts: first we will go through the events that followed the 2003 invasion, up until the first total withdrawal of American troops in 2011, then we will take up where we left and analyze post-American Iraq until today, with a further look at the country’s prospects for the future.

As we will argue, a stable Iraq can be an important actor in the modern Middle East, where the demise of Saddam’s State left behind a vacuum that was exploited by countries like Iran to expand their influence. A full understanding of this conclusion requires going back to where everything began: that April 9, 2003, when Saddam’s statue was torn down. But before, some context is needed.

Background: Saddam Hussein and the Ba’thist hegemony

Stemming from the Mesopotamian culture, from the cradle of civilization, Iraq is a nation with immense history, shaped by the interactions of a multitude of faiths, confessions, and ethnic groups, as well as blessed with precious resources such as petroleum and a strategic geographical position.

Iraq could and should have flourished in the last century.

Gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1932, the country experienced economic growth, alongside instability, culminating in the fall of the Hashemite Kingdom in 1958 and a succession of bloody coups and conflicts during the First Republic of Iraq. 

With the 17 July Revolution the young, ascending Ba’th party ousted President Arif, reorienting the country from Nasserist policies towards a more nationalist nuance of Arab socialism.  The success of the Ba’ath Party can be attributed to its presenting an alternative to both Arab monarchies and communist parties, which were rather influential in the Iraqi political scene, as well as its push for modernization, secularization  and openness to women’s rights.

The Ba'ath Party combined its ideology with militant defence of its position of power from the outset. One of the central actors of this repressive security apparatus was Saddam Hussein, who, after having consolidated his position inside the Ba’ath Party owing to his ties to the party’s internal secret police, the Mukhabarat, became President of Iraq in 1979. After purging his Ba‘athist rivals only six days after assuming the presidency, Saddam intensified repression against segments of the Shiite population, whom the regime increasingly suspected of sympathy with revolutionary Iran. This climate of suspicion, amplified by the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), culminated in episodes of severe violence such as the Dujail massacre in 1982, causing more than 140 executions in one single day.

Even though the Iran-Iraq war ended in a stalemate for Iraq, which was supported by most foreign powers, the country was hit hard. Its flourishing rentier state economy was badly affected by the decline in oil exports and the curtailment of the emerging middle classes.. It was to recover the economy and consensus that Saddam launched his revanchist attack against Kuwait, resulting in the Gulf War (1990-1991). The subsequent defeat, in particular the sanctions and embargoes against Iraq, accelerated the decay of Saddam's regime. Saddam's fear of being overthrown made him reconsider some aspects of his politics: with the Faith Campaign in 1993 he drew nearer to Islamism, partially instrumentalising the population's religious feeling in an anti-Western way. An uprising in 1991, which led to the establishment of Kurdistan Region and to the imposition of no-fly zones, was ultimately unsuccessful in ousting Saddam. Further, the incapacity of the opposition to unite to create an alternative explains why Saddam was able to maintain power until 2003, despite its isolation and vulnerability.

Iraq's ethnic and religious composition at the eve of the American invasion - Source: Columbia International Affairs Online

The Route to Chaos: 2003-2006

The Collapse of Ba'athist Iraq

The Ba'athist regime and Saddam Hussein's power ended with the controversial 2003 invasion of Iraq by a "coalition of the willing". Operation Iraqi Freedom, led by the United States, was launched on March 20 and declared “accomplished” on May 1. While the military phase of the operation was a success, the US failed to win the peace, something which would bear catastrophic results. A sentiment of liberation, symbolized by the tearing down of Saddam's statue, and the hopes for a new beginning for a country that had long suffered under the Ba’athist regime, were short-lived. Hopes to transform the exceptional potential of a country rich in resources and culture into a modern and flourishing nation quickly stepped aside, clearing the way for discontent, disappointment and tribal tensions.

The US committed several grave blunders, misreading the Iraqi situation and implementing counter-productive measures that fuelled anti-American insurgency and deepened sectarian tensions. Only months after the beginning of the war, a country that had initially shown little resistance to the Coalition's invasion found itself simultaneously united against the occupation and fractured as never before along sectarian and religious lines. The first major blunder committed by the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority), the provisional government established after the downfall of the Ba’athist regime, was the decision by its administrator Paul Bremer to dissolve the Iraqi military and to enact a stringent de-Ba’athification process. Overnight, hundreds of thousands of armed Iraqis and bureaucrats found themselves unemployed and stripped of the prospect of reintegration in post-Ba'athist Iraq. The dismantling of the military, carried out without any serious attempt to rebuild it, further undermined security and deprived the emerging Iraqi authorities of the capacity to assert control amid civil disorder and competing paramilitary forces. 

The Misconception of a Neoliberal Iraq

Another serious mistake stemmed from the Americans' ideological approach to Iraq’s reconstruction and from a shortsighted and limited understanding of Iraq’s economic history and society. The CPA carried out a radical liberalization and privatization of the Iraqi economy, following the neoliberal dogma of the efficiency of free markets and of the harmfulness of state intervention. These policies, while theoretically coherent within their framework, proved to be inappropriate for Iraq’s economic post-war conditions. After decades of war, disorders, sanctions and depression, Iraq’s society and production were in such a shattered shape that it was impossible for the country's economy to recover without substantial state aid.

Moreover, the attempt of imposing a neo-liberal model collided with the Iraqi perception of economic policy. Driven by the need of fast economic and occupational recovery and used to Arab-socialist economic planning, a significant portion of the Iraqi society deemed neoliberalism to be negligent of its necessities and ultimately a vehicle for Western exploitation of national resources.   

As a consequence of these sentiments, significant portions of the working class and the rural population gave in to populist, nationalist, tribal or radical islamic ideas, rising up against the CPA and unleashing their discontent with sometimes peaceful, sometimes violent protests.

Already constrained by the sectarianisation of politics, mistrust in the new economic model, and a slow and uneven recovery, Iraqi civil society, particularly its urban middle class was unable to regain vitality under these conditions and to drive the country out of its crisis.

Sectarianization and the Muhasasa System

From July 2003 to June 2004, the CPA formed Iraq's first post-Ba’athist government, the Iraqi Governing Council, consisting of 25 members, chosen, among other criteria, with respect to their ethnicity.

However, a grave mistake was made in adopting the Muhasasa system to form the IGC and every elected government after it. The Muhasasa system functions as an ethno-sectarian quota system, which encourages political parties to identify with the ethnic or religious communities they represent, rather than with an ideology. 

This practice has exacerbated the segregation and sectarianization of Iraqi society, for instance by reserving the Presidency for a Kurd, the position of Prime Minister for a Shia and the Speakership of the Parliament to a Sunni.

Following this type of electoral system, Iraqi parties essentially crystallized in three political camps in the post-2003 political scenario: the islamist Shiite parties, including the SCIRI, the Dawa Party and the Sadrist group, all persecuted during the Ba’athist regime; the secular and nationalist Sunni parties, which felt marginalised by early arrangements and later by the new constitution; the Kurdish parties, unusually united in the Kurdistan Alliance in protecting their rights and emerging as the only flourishing Iraqi population after the war.

As many latent hostilities between these communities resurfaced, in particular between Sunnis and Shiites, and as the American mismanagement went on, political radicalisation fuelled conflicts between each other and against the CPA. From the very start of the American occupation, the Shiite Mahdi Army, led by Muqtada al-Sadr, whose father was killed by Saddam, was able to capture the poor's discontent with vehement criticism to the American occupation and to the secular Ba'athist order, refusing to participate in the Governing Council. The insurrections led by the Mahdi Army often sought to exploit civil disorder and expand their authority to promote a theocratic path, for instance during the 2004 uprisings. These insurrections were frequently mitigated by the intervention of Grand Ayatollah Ali’ Sistani, an essential figure in the effort of uniting and moderating the Iraqi people, withstanding American interference and extremist tendencies.

The Rise of Insurgency

Fearing, not without reason, a growing Iranian influence in Iraqi politics due to the emergence of Shiite-dominated governments, many Sunnis, stigmatized by the de-Ba’athification purge and feeling excluded by a Constitution they perceived to be neglectful of them, expressed their discontent by boycotting the first legislative elections and voting against the new Constitution. Governed largely by Shiite and Kurdish exiles who after decades of absence from the country were often shaped by past repression and resentment against Sunnis, the new order failed to represent the Sunni community. As a consequence, a significant fraction of the Sunni population turned to paramilitary radical organizations claiming to defend the Arab and nationalist identity of Iraq. Alongside moderate parties such as the Iraqi Accord Front, more radical organizations rose, including nostalgic Ba’athists, and most importantly, the jihadist organisation al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and established in 2004. AQI’s attacks, aimed at destabilizing and fracturing Iraqi society to promote the creation of an Islamic State, played an essential role in turning an anti-American insurgency into a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites.

A Fragile New Order

Following the return of sovereignty by the CPA to Iraq’s politicians and the institution of the Iraqi Interim Government, its head of government Iyad Allawi was tasked with taking Iraq to the elections of January 2005 to form a transitional parliament to draft a new constitution. The elections were largely boycotted by the Sunni population, leading to a significant victory of the Shia United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), composed of SCIRI and its military arm, the Badr organization, the Dawa Party and many minor parties. Ibrahim al-Jaafari of the Dawa Party became Prime Minister until the December elections and led the country to the October constitutional referendum that approved the new constitution, despite high discontent among the Sunni population. 

At the December elections al-Sadr decided, though reluctantly, to back the UIA and the Sunni population's turnout was higher than in the previous elections. Nevertheless, the democratization of the Iraqi order was only on a surface-level: tensions between Shiites and Sunnis were to burst into a large-scale conflict and radical extraparliamentary groups were to increase their authority.

Parallel to the democratic decision-making process, to elections, referendums and parliamentary sittings, foreign interference and conflicts were deepening the crisis, sectarian discrimination became dominant, and deviated or corrupted factions within ministries and parties were undermining the unripe political order.

These were the grievous conditions under which the first Iraqi government under al-Maliki of the Dawa party succeeded the Iraqi transition government in May 2006.

The Creation of the New Iraq : 2006-2011

The Failure of Operation Iraqi Freedom

The establishment of the al-Maliki Government, the first democratically elected government of Iraq, may have looked like a success for the American State-building effort. It was apparent, however, that this was just superficial. Even if power had been handed over to an elected independent establishment, the Iraqi State was more of a geographic expression than a political reality. As previously mentioned, the dismantling of Saddam’s regime had left an enormous power vacuum, whose handling by the Americans had been a cavalcade of costly mistakes. Up until now, all commentators on Washington’s actions almost unanimously agreed that the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom had been a terrible foreign policy failure: Iraq was plagued by endemic divisions, foreign actors like Iran had made significant headways, and support for the American intervention was fading among the public in the US. 

The chaos and sectarian violence sown by the aforementioned factions had only escalated in the years from 2003 to 2006. By January 2006 the number of confirmed civilian deaths had well exceeded 30 thousand, with many more wounded and displaced. Only a part of these casualties were a direct consequence of Coalition attacks; a growing number was caused by infighting between ethnic and religious factions. 

Tensions were particularly high between the Shiite majority and the disenfranchised Sunni minority. Shia militias were regularly fighting Sunni tribal groups, there were even allegations of the Mahdi Army operating death squads which targeted Sunni civilians. Al Qaeda’s power, even after the death of Al Zarqawi in an American strike in 2006, was increasing by the day, fuelled by the sense of insecurity and abandonment in Sunni-majority areas like the provinces of Anbar and Nineveh. In the first years after the American invasion, secular Sunni factions, including Ba’thist loyalists, and AQI Jihadists had directly or indirectly collaborated against Baghdad and Coalition forces. As a matter of fact, the Americans were perceived by the Iraqi population, especially in Sunni areas, as invaders with limited comprehension of local realities: they conducted fast counterinsurgency operations from their military bases located at the outskirts of urban centers and almost never showed up among the populace. They were not a factor of safety for civilians, who, as a consequence, initially hailed jihadists as protectors from Shiite violence. This allowed for an almost unchecked growth of AQI.

The Iraqi Civil War and "The Surge"

The situation escalated beyond repair when on February 22, 2006, the Al-Askari Shrine in Samarra, one of the main religious sites for Shia muslims, was damaged by a bomb attack, most probably carried out by AQI members. This event triggered a wave of sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis (and, more marginally, Kurds) which would be defined by many analysts as a civil war. The years 2006 and 2007 would be the most violent in all the 22 years from 2003 to the present, with more than 50 thousand civilian deaths. In response to these worrying developments and the unpreparedness of the new Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), the Bush Administration ordered the deployment of 20 thousand more American troops in Iraq known as “the Surge”. This would be the first effective American success since the start of the war.

In their attempt to pacify the different factions and eliminate the most extremist elements, the Americans changed strategy: they started to make their presence more visible to the population and present themselves as valid guarantors of security for civilians. This was matched with the growing discontent of the Sunni population towards AQI, which had relabeled itself Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) and had started showing its brutality and religious fanaticism. Sunni militias started to perceive they were being overrun by ISI and losing ground against their Shia counterparts aided by Iran. During 2007, in what was known as the “Sahwa” (“Awakening”) movement, more than 100 thousand Sunni fighters organized to join the American forces in their operations against the jihadists. Increasing cooperation with local Sunni factions demonstrated a winning strategy for the US, facilitating the almost complete defeat of ISI by 2008. Another effect of the Surge was that Sunni militias had effectively started to protect the Shia population from the jihadists. This played against the most extreme Shia movements like the Mahdi Army, which soon fell out of favor with the populace and the government. As a result, al-Maliki ordered a crackdown by the ISF against such movements. 

In 2008, violence was finally reduced to levels below that of 2004. The Surge was successful in all its objectives, partially bridging the gap between Sunni and Shia and creating the grounds for a more constructive political environment.

Al-Maliki's Authoritarian Tendencies

The success of the Surge had finally brought a period of peace in Iraq. This and the election of Barack Obama as president of the USA paved the way for the American withdrawal from Iraq. Under the pressure from many Iraqi politicians, al-Maliki at the top, the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) set the deadline to 2011. Coalition troops were withdrawn from all Iraqi urban centres by 2009 and military bases were gradually given back to Baghdad’s forces. During these years American troops went from a Rule of War approach to a Rule of Law one, starting to act less like occupiers and more as a cooperative force, supporting local stabilization and training the ISF.

Al-Maliki was able to capitalize on the pacification of the country in the 2009 provincial elections, further consolidating his position. Since his election to Prime Minister, he had started a worrying process of centralization of power that was overlooked by the American occupiers, who were too focused on military operations and preparing the Iraqi Army to stand by itself. While the Americans had incentivized the regularization of thousands of Sahwa members into the ISF (which was previously Shia dominated) and provincial elections had increased the political participation of Sunnis in the government, al-Maliki and the Shiites still held considerable power in the executive and intended to cement it. This prevented a true political conciliation between the two groups.

Already since 2006, al-Maliki had started to rely on extra-constitutional bodies and the practically complete control of the Shia on the military to expand his influence. He also opposed federalist reforms, even when supported by the Constitution. With the 2010 national elections the situation became even worse. The pluralist Iraqiya coalition won with 24.72% of the votes, while al-Maliki’s Shia coalition came second with a difference of just 0.5%. Talks to create a government were long and difficult, exposing still existing divisions. An agreement was reached to reconfirm al-Maliki as prime minister, with American and Iranian backing, in exchange for political concessions, but once back in power he disrespected the conditions.

The weakness of his parliamentary majority incentivized him to resort to even more authoritarian policies. His increasing grip on the judiciary allowed him to remove political opponents, especially among Sunni militias and Iraqiya’s leaders, on charges of terrorism and Ba’athism. He increased rhetorical attacks and accusations against the Sunnis to keep the Shia population afraid of them, strengthened the ties of its government with Iran and its Shia militias, started to infiltrate independent agencies like the Iraqi High Electoral Commission, the Central Bank, and anti-corruption bodies, and he began to undermine the power of the Council of Representatives (the Iraqi parliament) as well.

The American Withdrawal and the New Iraq

When the last American troops left Iraqi soil in December 2011 , they left behind a country that was mostly pacified militarily but incredibly divided politically and dysfunctional on more levels. Al-Maliki and the other factions had failed to transform the military pacification into a political one, and inter- and intra-sectional political fractures would only worsen, to a catastrophic extent. 

The country was plagued by profound endemic corruption that pervaded every echelon of the State, every leader, and every political party. The post-Ba’athist system had been designed by Shia and Kurd exiles who had planned and created it to get as much profit as they could. Powerful elites installed at every level of the government and the bureaucracy had entrenched or were in the process of entrenching themselves in positions to exploit revenues from oil or the works needed to rebuild the country. Al-Maliki was using his tenure on the executive to dismantle democracy piece by piece, relying on the army and Iran-backed islamist Shiite militias. He was fuelling corruption in the bureaucracy and the military, inciting sectarian and political divisions by attacking Sunnis and opposing federalism, starting to suppress dissent with force, and continuing to torture people in prison like Saddam had done.

After the Surge, the Americans failed to properly use the window of dialogue between factions that had been created. They supported the appointment of al-Maliki as prime minister after the 2010 elections and turned a blind eye to all his actions against the Rule of Law and democracy. Instead of capitalizing on their enormous success in 2008, they cemented an irreversible defeat of their State-building effort. As a matter of fact, their primary concern with security and their backing of the new political élite reflected where their real interests laid: the creation of a solid security partnership and a stable supplier of oil. But that objective would fail as well, not only because they had opened the door to Iranian influence, but also because corruption didn’t spare the ISF, where incompetent commanders close to the government would lead to the catastrophe of 2014 that will be analyzed in the next section.

If Al-Maliki had become popular among both Shias and Sunnis after the Surge, the three years after the end of the Civil War would completely shift this perspective. The Sunnis found themselves under renewed attack by the same Shia islamist militias that were disbanded in 2008, excluded from key government positions, and denied their autonomy. The Iraqi population in general, without the concern of security anymore, was getting more interested in the capacity of the government to handle the country effectively. They were starting to suffer from the inability and incompetence of the government to provide basic services and reconstruct the country. The combination of incompetent leaders, forced neoliberal policies and corruption was stripping the people of their resources and keeping their quality of life well below the times of the Ba’athist regime. 

When the last American soldier lifted his boot from the ground of Mesopotamia, he didn’t leave the prosperous, free country that his government had promised eight years prior: he left a signed promise that he would need to return.

Bibliography - Part 1

Abdullah, T. A. J. (2006). Dictatorship, imperialism and chaos: Iraq since 1989. Zed Books.

BBC News. (n.d.). Iraq profile – Timeline. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11733715

Cook, S. A. (2023). Twenty years after the war that ousted Saddam, Iraq is a shaky democracy. Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/article/twenty-years-after-war-oust-saddam-iraq-shaky-democracy

Dodge, T. (2019-2024). Managing Religious Diversity in the Middle East: The Muhasasa Ta'ifia in Iraq, 2003–2018. London School of Economics and Political Science, Middle East Centre. https://www.lse.ac.uk/middle-east-centre/research/muhasasa-taifia

Encyclopædia Britannica. (n.d.). Iraq: Government and society. https://www.britannica.com/place/Iraq/Government-and-society

Fisher, M. (2011, January). The truth about the iconic 2003 Saddam statue toppling. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2011/01/the-truth-about-iconic-2003-saddam-statue-toppling/342802/

Ibrahim, A. (2019, December 4). Muhasasa: The political system reviled by Iraqi protesters. Al Jazeera https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/4/muhasasa-the-political-system-reviled-by-iraqi-protesters

Jordan, D. (2023, August 24). State and religion in Iraq: The Sufi insurgency of the former Baʿth regime in historical context. International Journal of Middle East Studies. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-middle-east-studies/article/state-and-religion-in-iraq-the-sufi-insurgency-of-the-former-bath-regime-in-historical-context/7CF2DB551D1701257133BB46179140CC

Khedery, A. (2015, September 22). Iraq in pieces. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iraq/2015-09-22/iraq-pieces

Looney, R. (2004). A return to Baathist economics? Escaping vicious circles in Iraq. Strategic Insights, 3(7). https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/html/tr/ADA521638/index.html

Martini, L. S. (2018). Background: 2003–2018, 15 years of the new Iraq. Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI). https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/background-2003-2018-15-years-new-iraq-20469

Mansour, R. (2022, January 25). Why Iraqi democracy never stood a chance. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iraq/why-iraqi-democracy-never-stood-chance

Rose, G. (2013, March 18). Iraq in retrospect. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iraq/2013-03-18/iraq-retrospect

Sky, E. (2011, March 1). Iraq, from surge to sovereignty: Winding down the war in Iraq. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2011-03-01/iraq-surge-sovereignty

Statista. (n.d.). Documented civilian deaths in the Iraq War since 2003. https://www.statista.com/statistics/269729/documented-civilian-deaths-in-iraq-war-since-2003/

Sugarman, E., & al-Nidawi, O. (2013, February 11). Back in black. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iraq/2013-02-11/back-black

Sullivan, M. (23, April 17). Maliki’s authoritarian regime. Institute for the Study of War. https://www.understandingwar.org/research/middle-east/malikis-authoritarian-regime

The Economist. (2003, July 24). No to America, no to Saddam. https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2003/07/24/no-to-america-no-to-saddam

Toallast, R., Karim, A., Mahmoud, S. (2024, June 9). Iraq: ISIS war threat. The National. https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2024/06/09/iraq-isis-war-threat/