I’ve been watching YouTube videos of people just walking around various places in Iraq and I’m also chatting with Iraqis on hellotalk. They’re some of my favorite people ever, but the sunni-shia-kurd split in the country is very strong. Each side thinks the other is going to genocide it. Sunnis are worried about Iran, the Shias hate ISIS, and the Kurds…are doing their own thing. Iraq is so diverse that there are other groups I hadn’t even heard of, like the Kaka’is.
I also love Sumerian literature like Gilgamesh and used it for a novel I’m finishing. Lots of the Arabian Nights either take place there or were written there. I don’t have a great macro-perspective of the current political situation in Iraq aside from that the government changes every few months but is always pretty much subservient to the USA (though they have demanded that all US troops leave), aside from the Shia militias who are lobbing shit at the zionist entity seemingly every day. I’m Jewish and the idea of Babylonian Jews, Jewish Arabs, or Arab Jews, living in Iraq in relative peace for thousands of years undermines the rationale for the existence of isn’treal.
My knowledge of 19th century Iraq is also pretty lacking. I know about the siege of Kut by name, and that’s pretty much it. An Iraqi Sunni recently told me that the Shia have no history in Iraq…then that Ali was killed by a fellow Shia in Najaf (which incidentally has a spectacular shrine to him as well as the biggest graveyard on Earth.) I learned a lot about a religious minority called the Mandaeans for some other books I wrote. Iraq is totally fascinating in countless ways and I wish I could check it out in person. The people seem amazingly sweet, too.
Justin Podur’s podcast and YouTube channel are my go-to sources for Middle East and western politics and history at the moment.