Clearly, the corruption that dominates Iraq today can be traced back to the US occupation policy after Saddam Husayn’s Ba'thist regime was toppled in 2003. Rather than give Iraqis who had remained in Iraq under Saddam the ability to decide how the country would be governed, such as the highly respected elder statesman, Adnan Pachachi, the US offered positions to returning Iraqi expatriates, many of whom had close ties to Iran.
A prime example was cAbd al-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which had been established in Iran in 1982 during the Iran-Iraq War and run during its first two years by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Another unsavory character active in post-2003 Iraqi politics was Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, who had established close ties to many US policy-makers during his time in Washington, DC prior to the US invasion. Chalabi’s unsavory background included having been convicted of looting the Petra Bank in Jordan in 1967 for which he was given a prison term after being tried in absentia.
Of all the political figures the US empowered after 2003, none was as destructive as Nuri al-Maliki. George W. Bush took him under his wing in 2005 and began to meet with him from Washington, DC, though video conferencing. Thinking he would follow Bush’s advice on how to rule Iraq, the President overrode the objection of his advisors who distrusted al-Maliki and appointed him prime minister nevertheless in 2006.
Appointing al-Maliki prime minister was one of the worst the US decisions during its occupation of Iraq from 2003-2011.
Although al-Maliki did not show his sectarian side immediately, during his first term in office between 2006 and 2010, once he obtained a second term followed the parliamentary elections of 2010, his destructive behavior ravished Iraq. Barack Obama was now complicit in keeping al-Maliki in office despite his main opponent, Ayad Allawi, having obtained 91 to his 89 parliamentary seats. Once pressured by Iran, Obama agreed to allow al-Maliki to remain in office, another disastrous US decision.
al-Maliki's policies in Mosul were the most egregious and important for understanding the corruption which engulfs Iraq today.
In addition to attacking Iraq’s Sunni Arab community, Maliki undermined the Iraqi Army’s officer corps in Mosul. Professional career officers were replaced by his cronies, many of whom lacked military experience. These officers began stealing the salaries of Iraqi troops and offered other troops the option of turning over their salaries in return for not having to serve and being allowed to return home.
Meanwhile, troops in Mosul established check points throughout the city which they used to collect “fees” to replace the salaries which they either no longer received or received as partial payments. Understandably, the response of Mosul’s residents was to view the army as an occupying force. Because the majority of troops were Shi'a, the army’s presence in Mosul began to be viewed in sectarian terms, namely Shi'a troops vs. Sunni Arabs, who constitute the majority of the city’s inhabitants.
When the Da'ish arrived in Mosul in June 2014, the Iraq Army fled, leaving behind much US supplied equipment, some of it state of the art, such as armored personnel carriers. Over 1500 troops, all of them Shi'a, were captured after they left Camp Speicher where they had been training and were summarily executed with their bodies dumped into the Tigris River.
Nuri al-Maliki’s corrupt and nepotistic policies provided Islamic State terrorists with the opportunity to penetrate Mosul prior to June 2014 and convince notables that they could “liberate” the city from what they called the “Shi'a occupation.”
Bribes were offered to local officials and the city residents offered no resistance when approximately 800-1000 Islamic State fighters on pickup trucks with mounted machine guns were able to take over the city. Mosul’s banks were looted of their funds and the Islamic State was now in control of Iraq’s second largest city.
As terrorist forces seized territory beyond Mosul in other areas of north central Iraq and into al-Anbar Province, concern mounted as they moved closer to Baghdad.
A fatwa issue by Grand Ayatallah 'Ali al-Sistani called on Iraqis to organize to stop any further seizure of Iraqi territory. al-Sistani’s fatwa legitimized in effect the Popular Militia Movements (al-hashad al-sha'bi) which, as Worth describes in his article, effectively control much of Iraq today.
Because Iran sent units of its Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps to fight against the Da'ish, in effect in alliance with US forces, they extended their influence among existing Iraqi militias and the new ones which had just been formed.
After the Dacish advance was halted, the IRGC, under the command of Qassem Suleiman, who was killed by a US drone strike in January 2020, consolidated Iran’s influence in Iraq.
To be sure, Iranian influence in Iraq was prevalent, thanks to the Bush administration, after 2003. Once al-Maliki became prime minister, he worked to strengthen economic ties with Iran. He even sacrificed Iraqi industries, such as the ancient brick industry, by importing competing goods from Iran.
Exploiting the quota system (nizam al-muhassasa) which has been used to allocate seats in Iraq Chamber of Deputies (parliament), corruption has been institutionalized in Iraq. A small number of political parties divide up the spoils. These parties are in reality cliques who agree prior to national elections who will be given control over which ministries and other parts of Iraq’s government depending on the election’s outcome, namely the share of party's the votes. For example, Muqtada al-Sadr’s party, the Sadrist Trend (al-Tayyar al-Sadri), has controlled the lucrative Ministry of Health and distribution of medicine since 2007.
Iraq’s corruption is hollowing out the economy and destroying its citizens' trust in government. “Democratic elections” are becoming synonymous with stealing public funds and resources. As politicians become ever wealthier and the standard of living of ordinary Iraqi stagnates, and social services continue to deteriorate, Iraq’s populace has become ever angrier with the massive corruption which has engulfed their country.
In October 2019, a new youth uprising burst onto the political scene. Known as the October Revolution (Thawrat Tishreen), and recalling the June-October 1920 Iraqi Revolution (al-Thawra al-'Iraqiya al-Kubra), it gained the support of thousands of Iraq youth. Demonstrations appeared in Baghdad and virtually all cities and towns in the south of Iraq (with many Sunni Arab youth in the north expressing sympathy but not participating to give the government the excuse to brand the uprising as “terrorist”).
Despite vicious attacks by security forces from the Ministry of the Interior and militias, all of which have close ties to the Iranian regime, the demonstrations remained peaceful as deaths and injuries mounted and activists were kidnapped and tortured or some never heard from at all.
In late November, the massive demonstrations forced the resignation of then Prime Minster 'Adil 'Abd al-Mahdi.
Two candidates, Muhammad Tawfiq Allawi and Adnan al-Zurfi, who were nominated to succeed 'Abd al-Mahdi were denied the post when Thawrat Tishreen’s suppoirters rejected them. Finally, Iraq’s Director of Intelligence, and former journalist and human rights activist, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, was appointed prime minister, even though Iran felt he was too sympathetic to the United States. (For a discussion of al-Kadhimi, who has tried to protect the demonstrators, see my post, Can Mustafa al-Kadhimi Save Iraq?
Iraq’s peaceful youth uprising has elicited broad support from the Iraqi public. It also was a reason behind an effort of Iraqis to boycott Iranian goods because the Tehran regime is viewed as organizing the violent suppression of the protests. Most recently, Iranian directives to kill youth activists in Iraq’s third largest city, al-Basra, in the far south, has infuriated Iraqis.
What needs to happen now? Because Prime Minister al-Kadhimi has called for early parliamentary elections in June 2021, it is important that the supporters of Thawrat Tishreen move to institutionalize the revolution. First and foremost, this process requires establishing a political movement which can field candidates for the June 2021 elections.
I would argue that any political movement which Iraqi youth seek to organize must be closely tied to members of the older generation who share their goals of ending the Iraqi government’s extensive corruption and nepotism, improving social services and restoring trust in democratic governance. Clerics, tribal leaders, professionals, educators and members of the private sector need to unite to form a powerful political list which will attract the votes of large segments of Iraqi society.
To make this political effort succeed and win a large number of seat in parliament, Iraqi youth need to use social media and the online press, such as al-Mada, al-'Alim al-Jadid, and Glgamesh.com, just to name a few news sources, to document the deterioration of social services in Iraq under previous governments, including the antiquated health care system, an ineffective national school system, poor public transportation, lack of affordable child-care facilities, and proper maintenance of districts which incur health problems due to intermittent or non-existent refuse removal and street cleaning.
The majority of youth who have been the drivers behind the October Revolution are from Baghdad and the south which explains the disproportionately large number of Shi'a youth in its ranks. Even though the demonstrators stress their tolerance toward all religions and ethnic groups and strong anti-sectarian bona fides, they do not seem to have reached out in any systematic way to Arab Sunni or Kurdish youth or youth in other ethnic communities, e.g., the Turkmen.
Because youth in all Iraq's ethno-confessional communities are equally angry, the Thawrat Tishreen could expand its influence if it could establish a de-centralized network of candidates throughout Iraq and not just in the south.
In the struggle over ideas, many of the parties in the Chamber of Deputies claim to be “religious parties.” They also claim that they are protecting Iraq from the ills and immorality of secularism.
However, their corrupt activities have nothing to do with Islam. Instead, these so-called “religious parties” traffic in politicized religion. In other words, they manipulate religious categories to promote their financial interest and political power under the guise of supporting Islamic values.
In this instance, it is important to engage clerics who can dispute the claims of these parties to be committed to strengthening religious values.
By focusing on their corrupt activities and demonstrating that little or nothing which they do helps the poor and marginalized in Iraq society, Iraqi youth can use their political movement to dispute that the “religious parties” have any connection at all to the Islamic religion.
The struggle to win seats in the Iraqi parliament will not be easy. Power is never ceded without a fight. However, only by gaining control of the avenues of power, beginning with the Chamber of Deputies, can Thawrat Tishreen gain the strength to achieve its goals, which is to end state corruption and establish a true social democracy.
