In late August 2022, serious fighting broke out in Baghdad
as protesters stormed the Green Zone, the heavily defended home of the Iraq government.
The ensuing clashes with security forces and rival
groups left over 20 dead and sparked fears of a return to wider conflict.
But while an uneasy calm has now seemingly settled on Iraq, this latest outbreak of violence has
drawn attention to a country that's otherwise been all but forgotten by the international community.
It also prompts an important question.
Almost two decades on from the US-led invasion and occupation, was it all worth it?
Hello and welcome. If you're new to the channel, my name is James Ker-Lindsay and
here I take an informed look at international relations, conflict, security and statehood.
There was a moment in modern international relations
when the idea of military intervention became respectable in Western circles.
For some, it was driven by the belief that the world shouldn't stand by as atrocities unfolded
in countries where the government was attacking its own citizens.
Others had a genuine conviction that many of the world's wrongs could be put right
by externally imposed liberal democracy.
For a part of the U.S. political right - the neoconservatives, or neocons - intervention
was based on the view that the United States, having won the Cold War and emerged as the
world's hyperpower, enjoyed the ability to impose its will on others as it saw fit.
Perhaps the best example of this thinking was the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
One of the most controversial wars of modern international relations,
at the time it bitterly divided not just the international community but also the West itself.
And yet now it feels strangely forgotten.
But while media and political attention has long since waned, the country nevertheless
remains plagued by political instability, weak governance, corruption and sectarian violence.
So, almost 20 years on, was there any merit to the invasion?
Iraq lies at the heart of the Middle East.
To its north is Turkey and to its east is Iran.
To the south, it's bordered by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
and has a short coastline on the Persian Gulf.
Meanwhile, Jordan and Syria run along its western border.
At 440,000 square kilometres,
or 170,000 square miles, it's the 58th largest member of the United Nations.
Its population is currently believed to be around 40 million.
While most are Arab, there are almost 9 million Kurds located in the north of the country.
In terms of religion, almost all Iraqis are muslim.
But unlike most of the wider Muslim world, which adheres to Sunni islam,
around 60 percent of Iraqis follow the Shia branch of the faith.
On top of this, there are Christians, Yazidis, Baha'i and a tiny jewish community in the country.
Iraq has a truly extraordinary history.
Indeed, the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - Mesopotamia
as it was once known - is widely regarded as the birthplace of human civilisation.
And over many millennia the area came under the rule of numerous empires,
including the Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, and Romans.
The key turning point, however, came in the 7th century when it was conquered by muslim Arabs.
Over the course of the following centuries, Baghdad became the heartland of the Islamic world.
However, by the 15th century power had shifted
and Mesopotamia became a province of the Ottoman Empire.
This lasted until the end of the First World War.
As the Empire collapsed, the new Kingdom of Iraq was placed under British administration.
In 1932, Iraq achieved full independence and in 1945, following the end of the Second World War,
it became one of the 51 founding members of the United Nations.
While Iraq was initially close to the West, this changed in 1958 when the
monarchy was overthrown by a military coup and the country became a republic.
A decade later, the socialist Arab nationalist Ba'ath party seized control and in 1979
the country's security chief, Saddam Hussein, became party leader and President of Iraq.
While many at first praised the new president for his efforts to modernise Iraq,
a process aided by the country's significant oil wealth, Saddam Hussein nevertheless
oversaw a brutal Sunni-led regime that systematically tortured and murdered
political opponents and oppressed the Kurds in the north and the Shia community in the south.
That said, many in the west came to see Iraq as a useful balance against revolutionary Iran.
This came to a head in 1980, when Iraq attacked Iran - sparking exceptionally brutal eight-year
war that would end in a stalemate after the deaths of anywhere up to a million people.
However, everything would change for Iraq on 2 August 1990, when Saddam Hussein
launched another war; this time invading neighbouring Kuwait.
Early the following year, an international coalition led by the United States,
and operating under a UN Security Council mandate, forced Iraq out of Kuwait.
This in turn sparked uprisings in the north and south of Iraq.
But while the Kurds were able to establish their own de facto state in the north,
the Shia rebellion in the south was eventually put down by the Iraqi army.
In 2001, following a highly contested election,
George W. Bush became President of the United States.
Almost immediately, it became clear that key figures around him felt that the time had come
to complete the job from a decade earlier and removed Saddam Hussain from power by force.
Using the 911 attacks to link Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussain,
and characterising Iraq as part of an "axis of evil" in international politics,
the Bush administration now accused Baghdad of developing weapons of mass destruction.
But while Britain and many eastern European NATO members lined up behind Washington,
many other countries bitterly opposed what they saw as an unprovoked war.
However, their protests came to little.
In March 2003, US and British forces, supported by Australian and Polish troops, invaded Iraq.
Six weeks later, the Ba'ath regime had fallen and Iraq was under American control.
While the overthrow of Saddam Hussain was meant to herald a new era of peace and stability for Iraq,
the situation rapidly deteriorated.
It soon became clear that little thought had
been given about how to run the country after the regime fell.
Indeed, in their haste to dismantle all traces of the previous regime,
US administrators sacked hundreds of thousands of officials and soldiers.
Resentful, and now out of work, many would go on to join a Sunni insurgency against US rule.
Meanwhile, neighbouring Iran, which opposed the US presence on its border,
sponsored Shia uprisings against the occupation.
In 2005, direct U.S. control came to an end with the introduction of a new constitution
and parliamentary elections.
Overwhelmingly won by Shia and Kurdish parties,
this ended the long-standing Sunni domination in the country.
However, hopes that this would end the insurgency were short-lived.
As well as the holdouts from the Ba'ath regime, growing numbers of Sunni islamist extremists,
including members of Al-Qaeda, flooded into Iraq to fight the US forces.
This in turn fed tensions with Shia groups.
This came to a head in early 2006, when one of the holiest Shia shrines in Iraq was destroyed
in a massive explosion, thus sparking a civil war between the country's Sunni and Shia communities.
Faced with an increasingly dangerous situation, in 2007 the United States
bolstered its 130,000 strong force in the country with another 30,000 troops.
The Surge, as it was known, helped ease the situation and in 2011 US military operations in
the country officially came to an end - although even to this day it still maintains bases in Iraq.
Since then, Iraq has continued to struggle.
As well as the deep political, ethnic, and religious differences, it had to contend
with a deadly new threat in the form of ISIS - the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Straddling the border between Iraq and Syria, which had by then descended into
a civil war of its own, the group quickly made significant gains.
But while it was eventually defeated, many of its fighters remain at large.
Meanwhile, the political situation in Iraq remains unsettled.
In 2019, mass protests erupted as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets
to demonstrate against poor governance, corruption, unemployment, violent sectarianism
and foreign interference that all still plagued the country.
This met with heavy-handed opposition from security forces.
Over two years, it's estimated that over 600 people were killed
and over twenty thousand injured.
As for this latest bout of violence, it was spurred by the decision of Muqtada al-Sadr,
a revered Shia cleric and former militia leader,
who's become a major political figure, to retire from public life.
Having led calls in recent years for the country to rid itself of endemic corruption
and to end US and Iranian interference, he still commands considerable devotion amongst
his supporters - who took to the streets following the news of his retirement.
Fortunately, however, the immediate fears that it could mark a return to conflict
appeared premature as Sadr called on his followers to disperse peacefully.
Nevertheless, it was another stark reminder of just how fragile the situation remains in Iraq.
Obviously, all this begs the question as to whether the 2003 invasion was in any way worth it.
While the Bush administration argued that getting rid of Saddam Hussain had been the right thing to
do, for millions of ordinary Iraqis the violence and shortages were nothing short of disastrous.
While one study suggested that the conflict directly led to 190,000 deaths - including 130,000
civilians - many hundreds of thousands more lives were lost to disease and other problems.
Meanwhile, the financial cost of the conflict was utterly astounding.
It's now believed that ultimately it will have cost the United States 2.2 trillion dollars.
More to the point, the opportunity to rebuild Iraq was wasted as much of the money earmarked
for vital reconstruction projects was ultimately spent on security or lost to waste and corruption.
It's also taken a massive toll on Iraq in other ways.
Today, the country is deeply divided along both ethnic and religious lines,
the government is weak and corrupt, and the economic situation remains worrying.
Indeed, the 2022 Fragile States Index places Iraq in the bottom 25 countries in the world.
Meanwhile, it's also had worrying geopolitical implications.
As well as increasing Iran's presence and influence in Iraq, the invasion and occupation
has also helped to contribute to the wider sense that major powers can ignore sovereignty
when it suits them - the consequences of which we are now seeing in Ukraine.
But while it may be tempting to think of this situation as an unmitigated disaster,
it's also important to consider the situation more widely.
For a start, it's worth remembering the legacy of Saddam Hussain
and the Ba'ath regime; not just internally but internationally.
Aside from the horrific human rights abuses, including genocide against the Kurds,
the regime also started two major wars.
Meanwhile, for all the difficulties Iraq now faces, it has opened up.
The majority Shia community and the Kurds have assumed a proper place in
the country's political life and Iraq has been accepted back into the international community.
But regardless of where one stands on the invasion, almost 20 years after the overthrow
of Saddam Hussain, there's just no denying that Iraq is still marred in deep problems.
And despite the divisions of the time, it now seems strangely forgotten on the world stage.
As Colin Powell, Bush's Secretary of State, who was widely believed to oppose the invasion,
famously warned his Neocon colleagues at the time: "if you break it. you own it."
But two decades later it instead feels like the pieces of Iraq have instead
been quietly swept under the international carpet.
In the meantime, although it may be tempting to think that Iraq and Ukraine are two sides
of the same coin, here's a video to explain why this isn't really the case.