Vital Interests: You have spent a good deal of time in Iraq and the surrounding area. Iraq seems to be on the back burner these days except when it makes the news as it did with mass demonstrations precipitated by the dissatisfaction of Iraqi youth. Could you give us some kind of a brief overview of what you think the state of Iraq is these days, the government, the economy, the society?

Emma Sky: October witnessed young Iraqis coming out into the streets to protest their situation. They don’t remember Saddam's era. They would have been kids when Saddam was overthrown and all they have known, really, is invasion, occupation, civil war, and ISIS.  Now that security issues have decreased, young people are demonstrating in the streets, expressing their frustration that they have no jobs, they have no opportunities, they have no hope. With social media they can see how people in other parts of the world live compared to their lives. They blame their situation on their government, on the political leaders, who they see as being corrupt, detached and unconcerned about the reality of the lives of ordinary Iraqis.

I think the growing sense of humiliation and alienation boiled over. It's not new. There were widespread protests in 2011, 2015 and in 2018.  But I think what's shocking in this latest round of protests is the repressive response from the government – so far over 200 people have been killed and thousands injured. 

These unarmed protests are happening not only in Baghdad, but across the south of the country - in Nasiriyah, Diwaniya. Most of the protesters are actually young, Shia men. They are waving Iraqi flags and declaring their love of their country. This counters the people who say that Iraq is “dead” and that there is no such thing as Iraqi Nationalism. The hashtags the are using are: #SAVE_THE_IRAQI_PEOPLE and #I _ WANT_ MY_COUNTRY_BACK.

The October protests seemed to have been sparked by the removal of a very popular general, Lieutenant General Abdul Wahab al-Saadi, from his post as leader of the Counter-Terrorism command. He was the hero of the fight against ISIS in Mosul. He happens to be Shia, and is regarded as somebody who is very fair and who was pushing back on the militias and non-state armed groups.

So a popular national hero – regarded as competent and honest - was demoted while corrupt and incompetent political elites remain in power. 

On 25 October, at the end of the Shia pilgrimage of Arbaeen, and on the first anniversary of Adel Mehdi’s government, the protestors came out in force again.

It’s been amazing to watch school children come out on strike in support of the protestors. To see young men driving tuktuks in and out of the crowds to ferry the wounded to medical care. And to see women demonstrating - particularly in Najaf. 

VI: Why do you think that the elites are so inept and not able to get the Iraqi economy on the right track? Is it totally their ineptitude? Or is it also because the international community promised large sums of money for capital investments, infrastructure, and improving the oil extraction industry and this support has not necessarily materialized?

Emma Sky: Billions of dollars from the US and the international community have been poured into Iraq and where has it all gone? What can you see? What has been done with those billions upon billions in investment? 

I think the root cause of the problem - the incompetence and the corruption - goes back to the system that was put in place in 2003 after the overthrow of the former regime. This new system was supposed to ensure pluralism, to move away from one-party state-control under the Baath, and to put Iraq on new foundations. This new system was embodied in the Iraqi Governing Council which was set up in August 2003 and in which positions were allocated according to sects and ethnicity. There were to be a certain amount of Sunnis, Shias, Kurds and Turkmen – based on their estimated demographics - to ensure an all-inclusive representation of the country.

We now understand the consequences of institutionalizing sects and ethnicity. This permeated down through the ministries and affected the electoral system that was put in place. It set in place incentives for parties based on sect and ethnicity, and for campaigning that was hostile to other sects and ethnicities rather than on platforms for improving services and governance. It was one of the main factors that led to Iraq’s Civil War.

In the years following the civil war, Iraq’s political elites have moved away from sectarian competition to kleptocracy. After every election, all the political parties come into the government. In a “normal” parliamentary system, you have an election and the winning party, if it has a majority of seats, it puts together the government. If not, it forms a coalition with some other blocks, but then there's an opposition. In Iraq, that has never happened. There's never been a “loyal” opposition. 

After each election, all political parties come into government. Then what they do is divide up the country’s oil wealth between them based on the size of their vote in the elections. 

The young protesters are demanding that this system of muhassassa be replaced.

VI: The economy is not diversified. Is it still dominated by petroleum-based extractive industries?

Emma Sky: Yes, 90% of government revenues come from oil. Iraq is a rentier state and suffers from the oil curse. The government is able to fund itself from the oil rents – and so does not have the normal incentives to ensure its citizens are productive so that they can pay taxes to fund government. 

Iraq’s political elite divide up the oil wealth between themselves. Big contracts are awarded to companies that are close to the politicians. Fraud takes place in these contracts leaving basic services underfunded and of poor quality.

In these protests, you hear Iraqis chant: “you are all thieves.” They want this system to be overthrown.

VI: I would imagine a good deal of these government funds filter down through patronage to tribal leaders and ethnic groups with very little being dispersed to the society as a whole.

Emma Sky: Yes. It’s a patronage system, benefiting those who are connected to political parties and militias. There are a large number of Iraqis – estimated at 7-9 million - on the public sector payroll. Only a fraction of the budget goes into infrastructure development. The economy isn't diversified, the private sector is crowded out. These young protesters, many of whom are educated and have degrees, are angry that they haven't got any job prospects. 

VI: That certainly is a limiting factor. Can I ask about other influences on the Iraqi state? Iran for example. Are a number of the Iranian-trained militias being absorbed into the Iraqi Army still somewhat controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard?

Emma Sky: Some of the militias – but not all – are close to Iran. 

In the protests, there have been chants for Iraq to be free and “Iran out” - and attacks on buildings belonging to Iranian-backed militias. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi recognizes that many of the concerns of the protestors are legitimate. In his response, he promised to distribute plots of land to low income families, the construction of 100,000 housing units, stipends to the unemployed, training programs, these sorts of things. But at the same time  he is trying to use re-distribution of resources to placate the demands of the protesters, the Iraqi security forces and militias have also been using force to crush the protests. 

The National Security Adviser accused the protesters of trying to overthrow the government, of being agents of foreign powers. He and others are peddling the message that this is a conspiracy. In Iran, Khamenei tweeted that, "Enemies are trying to sow discord but they have failed and their conspiracy won't be effective." 

VI: In terms of the overall makeup of Iraq, a lot of the population is concentrated around Baghdad and then south to Basra. In Anbar province and the Kurdistan areas, are they separate from the issues that have sparked the protests?

Emma Sky: I think one of the most noticeable things over the last two years has been a decline in sectarianism. The language being used in the protests is very much nationalist. We're not seeing protests in Anbar or in Mosul despite their situation being so bad and their living in desperate circumstances - I think they are probably scared that if they protest they'll be accused of being ISIS. But they relate to the protestors and express their support and admiration for them on social media.  A recent opinion poll showed that across the country people feel that corruption is getting worse while sectarianism is going down.

VI: Can this broad solidarity against corruption and against elites who are not addressing the real concerns of the people be seen as a unifying movement that could be a positive force in Iraq? 

Emma Sky: Class warfare is probably too strong a way to put it, but it is certainly the people united against those in power. It's the younger generation frustrated and angry with political elites, whom they regard as corrupt. There's also a sense that these elites are connected to Iran and that Iran controls things in Iraq.

VI:  Corruption must also be impacting the ability to entice foreign investment in Iraq?

Emma Sky: Iraq is not a poor country - but where does all its money go? If you go back 50 years, Iraq looked like a European country. It was on a par in terms of development with a European country. But since then, there have been decades and decades of lack of investment in infrastructure, in agriculture, in human development due to the wars. And then the spread of corruption in the 1990s when Iraq was under sanctions. All of this accumulated to create the  situation we have today.

VI: When you go into a city like Baghdad, do you see new construction and some level of development or does it look really hard-scrabbled, beat up, and not an encouraging place to invest in?

Emma Sky: About a year ago when I was there, Baghdad was looking better than I've ever seen it. A lot of private sector investment has gone in and parts of the city look much, much better. The blast walls are being taken down. 

VI: In Mosul, Fallujah, and other areas that were largely destroyed by ISIS or in the battles to route them, is the promised foreign investment to rebuild being delivered?

Emma Sky: Well, I'm not sure. When you look at Mosul, much of it was destroyed during the fight against ISIS, and there has been little reconstruction since then. The government seems to be absent. On one level, of course, there's not enough investment. On another level, is there the capability to do anything with outside investment? You need legitimate governance in order to direct investment, and that is the problem. How do you reconstruct if there's no legitimate companies, contractors, local governance to oversee all of that?

VI: Do you see any hope that the elites will take caution from the recent widespread demonstrations and resolve to address social and economic demands?

Emma Sky: Well, that would be the hopeful scenario, that the demands of the people lead to reform of the system. The problem is that the people responsible for reforming the system are the very ones who benefit from it. Some regard these protests as an existential threat.

Many things need to be done to reform the system. They need to amend the constitution, the electoral law and party financing. There's a lot of technical things that need to be done. And to move towards having a loyal opposition, and not having everybody with their heads in the trough as part of the government. This is difficult.

VI: The political power that the Shia cleric Al Sadr has within the government, controlling a large voting bloc, is he able to advocate for more reforms?

Emma Sky: Well Al Sadr called for the government to resign and for there to be elections. But I think what's different about these protests is that you don't see any political parties involved in them. These current protests appear leaderless. 

So if there is a snap election, how will things change? The protesters don't have political parties who represent them. They are pressuring government to reform. But how do they convert this to a political bloc that could run in elections and provide an alternative to the current system? 

After the last election in 2018, it took months and months to form a government. They finally agreed on Adel Abdul-Mahdi as Prime Minister because he was weak. He's a very intelligent, well-qualified individual but he doesn't have a political party to push forward the reforms he wants to make and has to compromise with the political parties that control the government apparatus. 

VI: A couple of years ago, the Kurds held a referendum to measure the support for more autonomy within the Iraqi state. Although there was overwhelming support for increased autonomy, the international community ignored the results and Baghdad cracked down hard on the Kurds. What are the current relations between the Iraqi Kurds and the Baghdad government?

Emma Sky: In 2017, the Kurds went ahead with a referendum on independence against the advice of the international community, the UN and the Iraqi government, so it didn't have international legitimacy. 

I think the Kurdish leader, Masoud Barzani, pushed forward with it because he saw the Kurds were at their strongest point. The Kurds had been loyal allies to the United States in the fight against ISIS and had received weapons and funds directly. They had managed to take over a lot of the territory that ISIS had controlled, including the disputed territories – and the city of Kirkuk and its adjacent oil fields. 

But no Iraqi prime minister could afford to lose Kirkuk and its oil fields. Haydar al-Abadi sent Iraqi forces up to take back control of Kirkuk. A deal was done ahead of time with the P.U.K.(Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) who withdrew their peshmerga forces from Kirkuk under a deal that was brokered by Iranian General Qasem Soleimani against the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party). There has always been competition between Kurdish parties – but this level of betrayal had not been seen since the Kurdish civil war in the 1990s. After the fall of Saddam, the two main Kurdish parties had agreed to work together. 

The Kurdish leaders get on well with Adel Abdul-Mahdi, so there's been an improvement in the relationship with Baghdad. But the divisions between Kurdish parties are still there.

VI: Is the economic situation in the Kurdish regions the same as it is in the south, where youth can't find jobs? Is it more prosperous there or are there the same realities?

Emma Sky: The Kurds had an economic boom but, then, after the 2017 referendum, there was a blockade that really hurt the economy in the Kurdish region. The transfer of funds from Baghdad to Kurdistan stopped. 

Young Kurds express their dissatisfaction with corruption in Kurdistan, but we're not seeing protests in the same way you're seeing them in Baghdad and down in the south at the moment.

VI: The events in Northern Syria along the Turkish border with regard to the Kurdish populations there - will the Iraqi Kurds get involved?

Emma Sky: I think the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan will be saying to the Syrian Kurds, “We warned you this was going to happen. We've seen this before." The Iraqi Kurds were used to fight against ISIS and then, when ISIS was defeated in Iraq and they moved forward with the referendum on independence, the United States did not back them.

In Syria, the U.S. strategy has been full of contradictions, it's been incoherent. Under Obama, initially, the policy was that Assad must go. Then when ISIS got stronger, the sense was, "ISIS is the number one enemy," and the US would then only support those groups that were fighting ISIS, while most of the Syrian opposition saw Assad as the bigger problem.

The United States determined that the Syrian Kurds of the YPG were the most competent military force and therefore would receive U.S. support to fight against ISIS. 

For Turkey, however, their number one enemy wasn't ISIS. Their number one enemy is Kurdish armed groups and they have a big problem with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) which is based in Iraqi Kurdistan, and they have a big problem with the YPG or People’s Protection Units which is the main part of the SDF or Syrian Democratic Forces inside Syria. So the YPG is a U.S. ally but is also affiliated with the PKK, which the US has proscribed as a terrorist organization. The U.S. has been pursuing tactics without any coherent overall strategy. The United States pushed forward with this approach over Turkey's objections because the U.S.'s main concern was ISIS. 

VI: Emma, this has been a good conversation. To sum up: what future role should the United States play in Iraq? Should there be more American involvement in security? Perhaps provide more development funds but insist on more oversight and anti-corruption reforms?  

Emma Sky: I think the United States can encourage the Iraqi government to respond to the legitimate concerns of the protesters and can urge restraint, can urge calm, and can look at ways in which the international community can help the Iraqi government reform. It has to be the Iraqis themselves that do this. Iraq has moved far beyond the U.S. being able to define their system of government and dictate what they do. What's difficult is that the U.S. introduced the current system of government in the first place and now it's got to help reform that very system.  The United States has got to explore how it can set positive incentives for reform and not just uphold the status quo in the name of security. It’s not tenable.

Emma Sky is director of Yale’s Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Program and a Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute, where she teaches Middle East politics. She is the author of the highly acclaimed The Unravelling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq (2015) and In a Time of Monsters: Travelling in a Middle East in Revolt (2019). Sky served as advisor to the Commanding General of US Forces in Iraq from 2007-2010; as advisor to the Commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in 2006; as advisor to the US Security Co-ordinator for the Middle East Peace Process in 2005; and as Governorate Co-ordinator of Kirkuk for the Coalition Provisional Authority, 2003-2004. Sky was educated at Oxford (UK), Alexandria (Egypt), Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel) and Liverpool (UK). Sky is an Officer of the British Empire.