Thread by @PeterHarling

THREAD On a recent trip to Iraq (which I have either lived in or visited regularly since 1998), I felt as if Iraqi society was fully awake and breathing again, after more than 15 years of sleep-walking and apnea.

In addition to this Slow Read essay I just published with @SynapsNetwork, I wanted to share more impressionistic and personal observations. synaps.network/natures-insurg…

My first surprise—as always, after a long absence—was to see how detached the atmosphere was from the ideas I had formed while abroad.

I expected more conversations to be marred by the ISIS legacy, escalating regional tensions, and the many issues left unresolved since the 2003 US invasion.

Most of my friends, however, were more relaxed than they had been in years. Many who had grown deeply sectarian were reembracing a complex, inclusive identity.

As the tall concrete walls that partitioned Baghdad were removed, it appeared that the mental barriers that divided it more starkly still had largely been cleared already.

Myriad checkpoints remained, in a country that has patently rebuilt itself as a police state. But they were no longer hallowed with suspicion and fear:

Driving around with a number plate evoking ISIS-held areas hardly raised an eyebrow. That said, as a foreigner, I did face multiple interrogations.

But most now ended with invitations to tea, lunch or dinner, in an expression of unbounded Iraqi hospitality that I had not experienced on this scale in ages.

These encounters also opened my eyes to the burlesque proliferation of security services of all denominations, of which I literally lost count.

So far, they do not add up, however, to an oppressive regime, if only because of the perceptible lack of coordination, communication, and trust between them.

The country’s many militias, which are less predictable and much scarier, were largely invisible—busy as they are looting former ISIS areas or cashing in on politics.

While their leaders make money and assume office, their footmen appear increasingly downtrodden. At checkpoints they were harassed more often than I was.

Everywhere, winter winds had ripped through portraits of martyrs, warmongering banners, and other militia-related paraphernalia, which no one cared to replace.

Even regional tensions, pitting Iran against Saudi Arabia, seemed to blow over. Iraqis were generally fatigued with such rivalries, greeting them with contempt at best.

Despite this sense of appeasement, people who had clung to Iraq through thick and thin were now making plans to leave. Peace, they mourned, did not beget hope.

Indeed, a deeper layer of problems has surfaced while violence ebbed away. These troubles form a challenge all the more ominous that it has yet to be acknowledged.

First, corruption is everywhere, in every form, and totally out of control. To take just one example, school curricula change incessantly to justify reprinting all the books.

Second, Baathist-era bureaucracy is coming back with a vengeance. In short, obstruction rules: Getting the most trivial things done requires excruciating efforts.

Third, governance is reduced to keeping the peace through splitting the spoils between numerous parties that have all been coopted—meaning no opposition.

But these parties don’t work together either. All told, there is no policy-making to speak of, to start addressing the backlog of social and economic ills Iraq suffers from.

Iraq is already on the verge of a major ecological and sanitary crisis, due to the collapse of public services compounded by the effects of climate change.

Meanwhile, the country’s demographics are exploding, with one of the highest birth rates in the world. Health, education, and employment needs are skyrocketing.

Iraq is thus caught in a vicious circle: A legacy of conflict distracts from the imperatives of basic governance, creating the conditions for cyclical breakdowns.

Iraq’s many conflicts have ran their course, yet without yielding a true form of government. Forget Trump, Iran or ISIS: That is what its fate will now hinge upon.