Iraq

Overview

Iraq occupies the heart of Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Its territory contains Babylon and other centers of ancient civilization, as well as cities central to Jewish, Christian and Islamic history. The modern state emerged after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Its population includes Arabs, Kurds, Iraqi Turkmens, Assyrians, Yazidis and other communities. Baghdad is its capital and largest city. Iraq’s oil resources have supported the state while making control of territory, export routes and public revenue central political questions.

Modern Iraq has experienced monarchy, military coups, Ba’athist dictatorship, foreign invasion, insurgency and repeated efforts to establish durable representative government. The fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 ended decades of authoritarian rule but did not produce lasting security. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Islamic State and armed groups aligned with the Iranian regime challenged the new state in different ways. The status of Kurdistan, protection of religious minorities, civilian control of weapons and Iraq’s relationship with the United States remain consequential questions. Iraqi security forces have fought jihadist organizations while successive governments have relied on, funded or struggled to restrain militias within the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).

Geography

Iraq extends from the mountains of Kurdistan in the north through the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates to the Persian Gulf. It borders Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria. Northern cities include Erbil, Duhok, Sulaymaniyah and Mosul. Baghdad stands on the Tigris in central Iraq, while Basra is the principal southern port and oil-export center. Kirkuk sits near major oil resources in a territory contested between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government.

The Nineveh Plains east and north of Mosul contain longstanding Assyrian and other Christian communities. Sinjar and nearby Mount Sinjar are central to the Yazidis. Iraq’s river systems support agriculture, settlement and hydroelectric power, but their management crosses political boundaries. The Kurdistan Regional Government operates the Dukan Dam on the Little Zab and the Darbandikhan Dam on the Sirwan; the federal government operates the Hemrin Dam farther downstream on the Sirwan. Water control, like oil production and transport, connects geography to disputes over federal authority.

History

Ancient Mesopotamian kingdoms developed writing, cities and law in lands now within Iraq. Babylon became an imperial and cultural center. Following the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem’s First Temple in 586 BCE, Jewish captives and later communities established a presence in Babylonia that endured for more than two millennia. Under successive empires, Baghdad became a major center of learning and commerce. Ottoman rule lasted until the First World War, when British forces entered the region. Britain established a mandate, the Hashemite monarchy took power in 1921, and Iraq gained formal independence in 1932. Military coups eventually ended the monarchy in 1958; the Ba’ath Party later consolidated power.

Saddam Hussein became president in 1979 and ruled through a coercive security apparatus, political executions and persecution of opponents. Ba’athist claims to secular, pan-Arab unity did not prevent sectarian repression. The regime targeted Shiite religious institutions in Najaf, deported tens of thousands of Shia Arabs and Kurds to Iran in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and attacked Kurdish communities during the Anfal campaign. Its chemical attack on Halabja in 1988 remains among its best-known atrocities. In the Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s, Iraq fought the Iranian regime in a devastating conflict. In 1975, before that war, Saddam had offered territorial concessions to Iran’s shah in exchange for an end to Iranian military support for Kurdish forces led by Mustafa Barzani.

On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. A United States-led coalition expelled Iraqi forces in the Gulf War of 1991. Kurdish and Shiite revolts then challenged Saddam’s government in the 1991 Iraqi uprisings. Initial postwar restrictions barred Iraqi fixed-wing aircraft but left helicopters available to help suppress the revolts. Saddam’s government subsequently renewed its repression of Najaf’s theological schools. A December 1992 decree granted Ba’ath Party members immunity for property damage, bodily harm and deaths inflicted while pursuing regime enemies.

The United States-led 2003 invasion of Iraq overthrew Saddam and began the Iraq War. Building new security and political institutions proved difficult amid insurgency, sectarian killings and competition for power. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s network deliberately attacked Shiites to provoke civil war. Bombings in Karbala and Baghdad killed an estimated 185 Shiite worshippers during Ashura on March 2, 2004. After Zarqawi’s death, allied jihadist groups declared the Islamic State of Iraq in October 2006. From 2008, Al-Qaeda in Iraq increasingly targeted Iraqi police, military headquarters and ministries. The United States withdrew its remaining forces in 2011, but the subsequent deterioration of security exposed the limits of Iraq’s rebuilt institutions.

Jewish history

The Jewish community of Iraq was among the oldest in the diaspora. Jews lived in Babylonia after the First Temple’s destruction in 586 BCE and developed religious, commercial and intellectual institutions over centuries. Baghdad later became a major Jewish center; at its peak, Jews accounted for nearly one-third of the city’s population. Jewish life also extended into Kurdistan. Jews and Christians under periods of Islamic rule were assigned dhimmi status, a subordinate legal position associated with jizya taxation. Their treatment varied across rulers and eras, and their long presence formed part of Iraq’s history before the modern state existed.

In June 1941, the Farhud brought mass violence against Baghdad’s Jews during Shavuot. Soldiers, paramilitary groups and civilians attacked Jewish neighborhoods, killing approximately 180 people, injuring many others and looting homes and businesses. The pogrom followed a pro-Nazi coup and became a defining rupture in Iraqi Jewish history. Anti-Jewish violence and restrictions increased around the establishment of Israel, against which Iraq fought in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The Iraqi state made Zionism—the Jewish people’s national movement for self-determination in their historical homeland—a capital offense.

In 1950, Iraq allowed Jews to leave if they renounced citizenship; property restrictions followed. From 1949 to 1951, approximately 104,000 Jews were evacuated to Israel through Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, and about 20,000 more left through Iran. The departure formed a major part of the Jewish exodus from the Muslim world. Jews who remained faced further restrictions under Ba’athist rule, including property seizures and limits on employment and movement. Iraq’s 2005 constitution promised restoration of citizenship withdrawn for political, racist or sectarian reasons, while anti-Jewish citizenship laws remained in force. A community that once helped shape Baghdad’s culture has dwindled to fewer than ten people.

Government and politics

Iraq’s 2005 constitution established a federal parliamentary system after Saddam’s fall. Elections and a quota reserving at least 25 percent of parliamentary seats for women expanded formal representation, though women elected under the quota were reported to have had limited influence in the system’s early years. Coalition bargaining, sectarian parties and armed organizations have complicated parliamentary government. The October 2021 election gave Muqtada al-Sadr’s faction the most seats, but a prolonged formation process excluded it from the government that took office under Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani in 2022. His governing coalition depended on pro-Iran forces, and his government offered militia-linked figures appointments and a PMF-run company named for Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

The Kurdistan Region has its own institutions and security forces within Iraq’s federal framework. Its leaders have pressed Baghdad to honor constitutional arrangements and balance power among state institutions. In September 2017, the Kurdistan Region independence referendum returned 92.73 percent support for independence. The result gave Kurdish leaders a mandate to negotiate but did not establish statehood. Weeks later, Iraqi forces and Iranian regime-backed militias attacked Kurdish forces and seized nearly half the territory and oil resources previously under Kurdistan Regional Government control, including Kirkuk. Baghdad also banned international flights to Kurdistan’s airports. Internal Kurdish divisions and the lack of international backing weakened the referendum’s prospects. The federal return to disputed areas brought reports of abuses by security forces, including PMF affiliates.

Political participation has not by itself removed militia power. Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq entered electoral politics through its Sadiqun bloc while retaining an armed organization. After an election reduced militia representation, representatives of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and Kata’ib Hezbollah threatened escalation toward armed conflict if the results excluded them. Religious authority Ali al-Sistani supported bringing armed groups under state command and army regulations. Public declarations in 2025 and January 2026 supporting state control of weapons did not establish that those groups had disarmed.

Military and security

The Islamic State’s 2014 advance exposed the weakness of Iraq’s armed forces. After the fall of Mosul, the organization controlled large areas, executed captured soldiers and persecuted civilians. It claimed to have killed more than 1,700 Shia Iraqi soldiers near Tikrit; mass graves containing soldiers’ bodies were exhumed there in 2015. Its campaign against Yazidis in Sinjar included massacre, enslavement and forced displacement, constituting the Yazidi genocide. Christians also fled threatened towns and villages. Iraq initially lacked the forces for a decisive Mosul offensive and concentrated on operations in Anbar before the Battle of Mosul in 2016–2017.

Iraqi forces, Kurdish forces and an international coalition fought the Islamic State under Operation Inherent Resolve. From August 8, 2014, through November 15, 2015, the United States conducted 6,846 airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria, while other coalition members conducted 1,937. The organization’s territorial caliphate in Iraq was defeated by December 2017, but its cells continued to kill and abduct civilians and attack security forces, including in Kirkuk Governorate. Iraq still required intelligence, air support, training and logistics to prevent a renewed large-scale insurgency.

The PMF arose as an umbrella for armed groups during the 2014 emergency and acquired a legal position within Iraq’s security structure. Its leading Iranian regime-aligned factions also developed political influence and independent armed capacity. The Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force cultivated Iraqi allies, including Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and the Badr Organization. Under Assad, Iran’s regime and Iraqi allied factions used routes through Baghdad and Damascus toward Beirut. Facilities near al-Qaim served as transit hubs for Iranian missiles and other supplies bound for Syria and Lebanon. The coexistence of state funding and armed autonomy has made civilian control of force a persistent test of Iraqi sovereignty.

Militia attacks also shaped Iraq’s relationship with the United States. Repeated Kata’ib Hezbollah rocket attacks forced U.S. forces to pause operations against the Islamic State on January 5, 2020, to protect bases hosting coalition troops. After the killing of Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad that January, Iranian regime-aligned militias continued attacks intended to press for an American withdrawal. Since January 2020, Iranian-backed PMF groups, including Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, have carried out more than 180 rocket, missile and drone attacks targeting U.S. military personnel in Iraq, Syria and Jordan. U.S. troop reductions and negotiations over their presence continued after the 2011 withdrawal and the 2020 crisis. The departure of American forces from Ayn al-Asad Air Base was celebrated by militia leaders in January 2026, while Iraq’s need to contain Islamic State cells and restrain armed factions persisted.

Relations with Israel

Iraq fought against Israel in 1948 and did not negotiate an armistice with it after that war. Saddam Hussein later pursued nuclear capability while threatening Israel. On June 7, 1981, Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his government authorized Operation Opera: Israeli aircraft destroyed the Osirak reactor near Baghdad and returned to Israel. The strike prevented use of that reactor in Iraq’s nuclear program. During the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam’s forces fired missiles at Israel, attempting to draw it into the conflict.

In the post-Saddam era, Iranian regime-backed militias have used Iraqi territory to threaten Israel. The PMF’s growing strength gave these groups political cover, state resources and access to routes westward through Syria. On July 8, 2024, the Houthi terrorist organization and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq jointly claimed a drone attack against Eilat; an Israeli fighter jet intercepted the incoming target before it entered Israel. During the Israel–Iran conflict, al-Sudani reported that Iraqi security forces thwarted 29 attempts by armed groups to launch missiles toward Israel or bases in Iraq housing U.S. forces. Those interceptions showed both the threat posed by armed factions and the Iraqi state’s capacity to obstruct some attacks.

Iraq’s relationship with Israel is also inseparable from the history of Iraqi Jews. Their ancient communities contributed to Babylonian and Baghdadi life before persecution and state restrictions drove most to Israel. The near disappearance of that community remains a major change in Iraq’s social history, not merely a consequence of interstate war.

Economy

Oil dominates Iraq’s public finances. Export revenue funds an estimated 90 percent of the government budget, leaving public spending exposed to disruptions in production, transport and access to dollars. Before the 2026 conflict between the United States and the Iranian regime, Basra handled 94 percent of Iraqi oil exports, averaging roughly 3.3 million barrels per day. Control of Kirkuk’s fields and export routes has therefore carried political as well as economic weight. After Baghdad retook Kirkuk in 2017, the Kurdistan Regional Government lost a major source of oil revenue. The Kirkuk–Ceyhan Oil Pipeline links Iraqi production to Turkey and has long figured in regional disputes.

Oil income has not eliminated dependence on political bargains over budgets, employment and security. Armed groups have obtained state salaries, land and commercial assets, while militia intimidation has obstructed some local reconstruction. A company named for al-Muhandis received government land, other assets and an annual budget of tens of millions of dollars after the 2022 government formation. Iranian oil-smuggling schemes have used Basra to blend Iranian and Iraqi crude and sell the mixture as Iraqi oil, evading U.S. sanctions on Iran’s regime. In 2026, the U.S. Treasury partially suspended physical dollar shipments tied to Iraq’s oil exports while pressing Baghdad to act against Iran-linked militias. These pressures illustrate how oil wealth, financial access and control of armed groups interact.

Society and religion

Iraq’s religious and ethnic diversity predates the modern republic. Its Shia and Sunni Muslim communities live alongside Christians of several churches, Yazidis, Mandaeans and others. Najaf and Karbala are major Shia religious centers. The Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East are Iraq’s largest Christian denominations; Syriac Orthodox Christians form another part of its Christian population. In 2019, Iraq’s largest remaining Christian population, encompassing multiple denominations, lived in the Nineveh Plains and Kurdistan Region.

Violence and insecurity have severely reduced historic Christian communities. Iraq’s Christian population before the 2003 invasion was estimated at 800,000 to 1.4 million, and more than half had left afterward. Between late September and mid-October 2008, more than half of Mosul’s Christian families fled a campaign of murders, bombings, harassment and death threats. Bombings struck churches in Baghdad in July 2009; in February 2010, Mosul’s Chaldean archbishop described a humanitarian emergency as hundreds of Christian families abandoned homes and businesses. The Islamic State’s later advance intensified displacement. Iraq’s Assyrian population was reported to have fallen from about 1.5 million roughly three decades earlier to about 150,000 amid decades of persecution and the Islamic State’s violence. In some Nineveh Plains towns, militias subsequently seized Christian-owned land through forged deeds, intimidation of registries and squatting, obstructing recovery.

Yazidi communities endured the Islamic State’s Sinjar massacre and a prolonged displacement crisis. Efforts to stabilize Sinjar have involved Iraqi authorities, local armed groups and displaced residents. In September 2026, the prime minister’s office announced that the Sinjar Resistance Units had agreed to disarm and that qualified members would enter Iraqi security institutions. The announcement marked a proposed step toward state control of force; the return of displaced families also depends on safety, housing and local governance. Across Iraq, protection of minority communities remains closely tied to whether public institutions can prevent attacks, secure property and enforce law without deference to armed factions.