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A
This is a bonus episode of history as it happens. It's November 26, 2025. It's been a generation since the US invaded Iraq. The invaders were not greeted as liberators. Years of violent insurgencies and sectarian strife followed. And today Iran, by virtue of the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, wields significant influence in Baghdad. According to Freedom House, Iraq is not a free country. The democratic governance is impeded in practice by corruption, militias operating outside the bounds of the law, and the weakness of formal institutions. State officials and powerful militias routinely infringe on the rights of citizens through legal and extrajudicial means. Iraq lacks independent media, and religious and academic freedom are severely restricted. But Iraq does have competitive elections. This month, Prime Minister Mohammed al Sudani's political bloc won the most seats in Parliament, Reuters reports a new could still be months away due to wrangling. To build a majority, the next government will need to navigate the delicate balance between US And Iranian influence. It must manage dozens of armed groups that are closer to Iran and answerable more to their own leaders than to the state, all while facing growing pressure from Washington to dismantle those militias. The report goes on to say Sudani's list came in first with 46 seats in the 329 member parliament. The Takaddoum party, which draws support from Iraq's mainly Sunni west and north, won 27 seats. Former Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki State of law group won 29, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party secured 26. The final total turnout in Iraq's parliamentary election was 56%. Parties in Iraq's Shiite ruling alliance say it'll move ahead with nominating a prime minister for the next phase of this process. Suidani had been seeking a second term in the election, but many disillusioned young voters saw the vote simply as a vehicle for established parties to divide Iraq's oil wealth, according to the Reuters report. So what to make of all this? Let's talk to Adam Weinstein, the deputy director of the Middle East Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, whose current research focuses on security and law in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Adam Weinstein, welcome back to the show.
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Thanks for having me.
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A
So we'll get to the Iraqi elections in a second, but I think we should start off with Dick Cheney, since he just died recently in his legacy vis a vis Iraq. How do ordinary people, ordinary Iraqis, feel about him? Or More broadly, the US invasion of 2003? Now that Iraq has achieved a modicum.
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B
Of stability, it's hard to say, because first of all, I don't think ordinary Iraqis think about Dick Cheney at all. But to the extent they think about what he represents, which is the U.S. invasion, you know, it depends what kind of Iraqi you are. If you occurred in the north of Iraq and the invasion was kind of a good thing for you, you established a quasi state. If you're a Sunni in western Iraq, it wasn't that great for you. You lost all your privilege. And if you were a Shia, it was a mixed bag. You got control over your country in a sense. But obviously everyone suffered under the Iraq war. I think a lot of Iraqis, other than perhaps some Sunni supporters of Saddam and many Sunnis, don't support Saddam. But there is a subset that might long for the days of Saddam. But I think the average Iraqi who lived through the Saddam era is happy he's gone, but is disappointed in Washington's follow through. Some of that is because they have expectations that are a little bit unrealistic. I mean, you'll sit down and talk to Iraqis and they'll be like, why can't America come reform our education system? Well, we can't even reform our own education system. I just saw stats that suggest that near half of U.S. high school graduates aren't proficient in math or reading. So I'm not sure why you'd want us to design your education system. But so they'll have expectations like that. And some of them are disappointed, of course, about the excesses that the killing, the raids, the murder of civilians during the war. And then the younger generation, you know, they don't even remember Saddam.
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A
Exactly. I was going to say a whole generation of people has grown up now with no living memory of Saddam Huss. You know, wounds do heal. I'm talking metaphorically here. Societies heal after time passes. Maybe not entirely. Some traumas never fully go away. I was wondering, is Iraq still riven by sectarianism?
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B
Well, yes, but not as much. I mean, one question I always ask people when I visit Iraq is how many cross sectarian marriages have happened this year in your network of friends? And they'll always say, oh, yeah, you know, Sunnis and Shia are marrying each other left and right. It's actually not that uncommon. It's not unheard of for that to happen, but it also depends what part of the country you're in. We thought the sectarian system and sectarianism was long gone in a sense, before the rise of isis. But ISIS was able to take advantage of Sunni grievances and Anbar and in Mosul, and they were able to take control of a huge part of the country because sectarianism can't just be buried. And if you see what's going on in Syria, I imagine that for some Sunnis in Iraq, they must be looking at a Sunni in charge of Syria and thinking, gosh, why can't it be here as well? And they must take some inspiration from that. Whether that translates into violence, who knows. I certainly know that the Shia leaders in Baghdad are not thrilled about the rise of the new leader in Damascus, Al Shada. So even though they're trying to have normal relations, so it's not as apparent in day to day interactions, but I think it still exists.
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And one of my recent episodes was titled Dick Cheney's Ruinous Legacy.
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The read we get on the people.
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Of Iraq is there's no question about what they want.
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Get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States.
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A
From my perspective, I'm not an Iraqi. He was a disaster, what he stood for. But as you said, if you're a Kurd with a autonomous quasi state, you're probably not thinking about Dick Cheney the same way I am here in my comfortable studio in Washington. You know, my next question goes from sectarianism into federalism. If you were to take a map of sectarian Iraq and overlay the federal system that was created in the Constitution from, What was it, 2005?
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B
Well, basically the 30,000 foot of it is that you have the KRG, the Kurdistan Regional Government. So that's this quasi state, it's part of federal Iraq, it's not independent. But you know, you have to cross a border to get into it. You have to cross a border to get out of it. And it feels like a different country. If you didn't tell someone it was part of Iraq, they would think it's a completely different country. And that's this semi autonomous self governing system that the Kurds have. There's two main factions of Kurds that have strongholds in different parts of the krg. Then there's the rest of Iraq, let's just call it Arab Iraq. So you have the Sunni strongholds in Anbar Province, that's where the famous Fallujah is. And in the north you have Mosul. And then you have the Shia south. I mean, the majority of the country is still Shia. And that the Shia part of the country really begins in Baghdad and extends all the way to the south to Basra. So it's quite expansive. Of course you have these coalition politics like you have in any parliamentary system and they form blocks and they make alliances. And so you'll have Sunni parties make alliances with stronger Shia alliances. And Kurds choose which Shia alliances to partner with as well. So basically you have the smaller minority political blocks where factions will choose which Shias they want to back. And within the Shia political landscape you have right now you have the coordination framework. That's the current prime minister's framework. It's like a big umbrella group of Shia parties. The coordination framework is sort of unified, but not really within that. There's factions that are very close to Iran and there's factions that are a little bit more moderate, like Sudani himself. Some of them have their own militias. And then the next biggest group, which I have to mention is the Saudi Arists. So the followers of Muqtada Al Sar. Although Moqtada Al Sadr in recent years has, has not been very political. But he used to be.
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A
Yeah. His grouping boycotted the elections. Why was that?
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B
Well, there's many different theories. He feels that changes in how elections are determined in certain constitutional rules in Iraq were unfair. There's also people who think that he's just playing the long game. He is from a clerical family, although he has an almost cult like following, it dirties his hands a little bit to be so involved in the day to day politics. And he might think that he has more long term power stepping back and trying to do things behind the scenes or just waiting out the dysfunction than contesting in the political landscape, especially one that Iran backed. Shia militias have a lot of power.
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A
Sure. He became a household name Muqtada Al Sadr during the worst of the insurgency. So what about isis, which has been driven underground, what is left of it? Did it have any influence on the alcohol of the election?
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B
No, I don't think ISIS is a huge factor anymore. They're a factor in terms of the US Iraq relationship. I think they're in the back of the mind of Iraqi leaders. They're not completely down and out. These cells pop out here and there. I think Iraq's leadership really looks at them like it's almost like the country has cancer, but it's in remission. You don't really have to worry about it. But you got to go for your checkup and make sure that it's not metastasizing because once it does, it's too late.
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A
So as mentioned, the Iraqi constitution was set up to create a federal system. It would not have a strong central government in the election. Prime Minister Mohammed Al Sudani. His political bloc won the Most seats, about 45 or 46 out of about 300 some odd seats in the parliament. What was different about his campaign this time around compared to 2021 when he was elevated to power by pro Iran parties and militias?
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B
The two big differences this time is some of those pro Iran factions, you know, those factions within his own coalition don't necessarily want to see him be prime minister again. That's one factor. The second factor is he was really especially internationally, but even in Iraq, he was an unknown the first time around. Now he's a known face. One thing that was unique about Suidani is he was the only or he was the first post Saddam Iraqi leader who hadn't spent the Saddam years To.
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