Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

Iraq’s slow disintegration as a unitary nation was something of an inevitability in the aftermath of the illegal US-UK invasion of 2003.
The plan to divide and pacify Iraq largely failed in respect of pacification, yet old divisions that were blown open by the invasion have largely succeeded in defining contemporary Iraq.
Iraq’s government and military is largely dominated by Shi’a Muslims and Shi’s militias, many of whom have an affinity towards Iran, are on the front lines in the fight against ISIS, al-Qaeda and similar groups.

It is painful to watch Iraq die a million times before its penultimate death. Between 1990 and the present day, there have been more years when Iraq has been bombed by the US and its partners, than years during which the opposite was true.
No other country can say the same in respect of that 27 year time frame. When Iraq wasn’t being bombed by the US, it was being sanctioned to death, while pirates plundered the profits from the inherently inhumane Oil For Food programme.

It is received wisdom among many, that because Iran has not declared war on any foreign power for centuries, that this somehow automatically makes contemporary Iran something of a sainted player in the Middle East. But this is not entirely the case.
For decades, under both the Imperial reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi as well as under the Islamic Republic, Iran was deeply desirous of having a more active presence in the Arab world.