Iraq, it seems, just seems to go from one crisis to the next. Public outrage, particularly from state employees, teachers, and medical workers following the leaking of the state budget for 2021 in November was so great that riot police had to surround the Central Bank building. The anger was caused by the proposal to devalue the country’s dinar by over 20% and cut the proportion of the state budget spent on wages from 25% to 12% of GDP. The immediate cause of this dramatic crisis was the drop in oil prices caused by the coronavirus triggered recession.
In September strikes by Doctors broke out despite, and in part because of the coronavirus. With just 30,000 doctors employed in the country and one of the lowest ratios between doctors and patients in the world, they were protesting against the refusal of the finance ministry to find money to employ any of the 31000 medical graduates who remain without work. Often, the doctors complain, they are brutally attacked by grieving relatives of those who have died from Covid-19, yet the state refuses to take any responsibility.
Earlier in 2020 the government allocated nearly half a billion dollars to ease the problems of the Iraqi poor — this supposedly helped 2 million families over two months — but this was just enough for $125 per family for 2 months. Over the course of 2020, it is estimated that the number of Iraqis living in poverty increased by 5 million.
In October, a new wave of protests broke out to mark the anniversary of the 2019 movement. As thousands took to the streets of Baghdad and other cities, they were met by police armed with stun grenades, water cannon and teargas. The mainly youthful protests, in a country in which youth unemployment is at least 40% continued in the tradition of 2019 — participants demanded jobs, improved services, and spoke in opposition to the sectarian divide of the country, a consequence of the imperialist interventions of previous decades. As one protester succinctly put it speaking to Reuters: “This is not a government, it is a bunch of parties and militias who destroyed Iraq”.
This comment echoes and in many ways sums up the anger that drove the protests at the end of 2019. They were triggered by the violent attack on a demonstration against youth unemployment, which was brutally attacked by the police, using live ammunition. It quickly developed into a nationwide protest fueled by the dire poverty. But demands were not restricted to pure economic demands. There was serious anger against the level of corruption. There was also the significant participation of women raising as well the issue of harassment.
As ISA commented at the time:
Protesters complain that the very system not only enshrines ethnic division but was, to a large degree, responsible for the sectarian civil war. Although the war has died down, in elections Shias and Sunnis are often motivated by the fear that if they do not vote, the other side will dominate. Even worse, the whole system relies on cronyism, parties make no pretence of representing ordinary people, instead use the system for their own party interest. They become easy prey for the different imperialist forces trying to build influence in the country”.
Impasse caused by imperialist intervention
As if to underline the impasse into which Iraq has fallen, the inability of its ruling elite and international backers to resolve even the basic problems of society, the proxy war between Iran and the US was once again played out on Iraqi soil as Hezbollah militia attacked the US K-1 airbase and then embassy in Baghdad, while the US bombed militia bases in Syria and Iraq. On January 3, 2020 a U.S. drone attack killed the top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and several other militia commanders at Baghdad airport.
This allowed al-Sadr to seize the initiative. Two weeks later he organized a ‘Million march’ in Baghdad and other cities to protest the US intervention. Claiming to oppose corruption, he tried to position his protests as in parallel with those at the end of 2019.
Ruling elite runs out of options
The former Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi was forced to resign as a result of the 2019 protests. Yet the only candidates the ruling elite found to replace him have been tainted by the corruption and sectarianism that resulted from the power sharing structures imposed by imperialism. Mahdi, after two months of horse trading by the political blocks was replaced by Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi, a former minister and businessman, with property developments in Lebanon, Morocco and England and holding a British passport. His appointment met with further protests: in the city of Nasiriyah, demonstrators issued a statement rejecting Allawi, saying “He is the compromised candidate that belongs to the sectarian power sharing political system (Muhasasa) we are protesting against, and does not represent the aspirations of the protest sites [his appointment was brought about] “by the same criminal, corrupt class that brought us to where we are now”.
After Allawi was forced to step down, the gauntlet was handed to Adnan al-Zurfi, who had served as a pro-Western figurehead who had cooperated with the U.S. in setting up the administration after the deposing of Saddam Hussain. He couldn’t even get enough votes in the parliament.
Down with the Muhasasa system
Then came the turn of Mustafa al Kadhimi — head of the country’s National Intelligence Service. His claim was based on the fact that he didn’t belong to a political block but had good relations with them all, he also holds a British passport. He promised to maintain the Muhasasa system and deal with the economic crisis by cutting public expenditure, in particular, the wages of government employees. He failed to fulfil his promise to bring to justice those responsible for the death of hundreds of protesters in 2019. He was forced to back off from his plans after several government offices were hit by sit-ins by unemployed workers demanding work.
This leaves Iraq in a potentially dangerous situation. The 2019 protest movement demanded early elections, which al Kadhimi has been dragging his feet over. They were first scheduled for June this year, but under the guise of the Coronavirus have been pushed back to October. On the current balance of forces, an election now will see the victory, albeit on a low turnout of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. In early February al Sadr led his heavily armed militia units out onto the streets of Najaf, Baghdad and other cities to demand that the elections are held early. Al-Sadr’s supporters warn publicly that “If the premiership goes to any party other than the Sadrist movement, it means the elections are rigged”.
Al-Sadr built his movement as part of the opposition to the US invasion — his ‘Mahdi Army’ claimed it was established to restore stability in war-torn Iraq and fight foreign intervention. This did not stop it accepting arms and finance from Iran and it was involved in many attacks on the Sunni population. Over the last decade however al-Sadr has been more engaged in political maneuvering, presenting his movement as against corruption and in opposition to the government, whilst his party cynically accepts ministerial posts. Supported by the Communist Party his block has become the largest in Parliament.
Al-Sadr defends existing architecture
His opposition however is limited to words. As the political commentator Hiwa Osman wrote in Al Jazeera: “His main slogan was always reform — i.e., he wanted the existing political architecture to remain the same, with occasional re-organisation and change of guard in government posts. This reform-focused agenda was what kept all the protests harmless for the government and the ruling political class. Every time the protests reached a new peak, al-Sadr would give a new ultimatum to the government, get promises of reform and send the protesters home”.
In 2019 however, this didn’t work. Al-Sadr was initially hostile to the protests but as he realized that they had huge popular support he tried to intervene, even at one stage sending his ‘blue hats’ militia supposedly to protect the protest, hoping that by doing so he could take control. The protestors were not so gullible, keeping their distance from the Sadrists, insisting they wanted “the downfall of the regime” that they see al-Sadr is himself part of. After the assassination of Soleimani, al-Sadr sent his ‘Blue hats’ into the protests “to reveal the saboteurs and the nationalist pretenders” leaving 7 young people dead.
Since then on several occasions in the course of last year, Sadrist followers and militias have physically attacked the protest movement and its supporters, and held counter-protests against it, making bigoted comments about the threat that the protests represent to morality, religious symbols and gender segregation. This has provoked the practical end of the opportunist honeymoon between Al-Sadr and the Communist Party.
Al Sadr’s attempts to portray himself as a recycled, non-sectarian, and “pro-poor” figure have been exposed by the 2019 movement. By showing the potential for a genuinely non-sectarian struggle challenging the power of the ruling elite, it has pushed Al Sadr back into whipping up divisive sectarian rhetoric to regain control — for example, he recently called for the restoration of the “Shiite Home”, a reference to the Shiites’ supposed right to rule the country given their majority among the Iraqi population.
We will be back, bigger than ever
The actions against protestors are making them even more angry. As one young, unemployed participant commented after these events: “We feel the government neglected our demands on purpose and we are waiting for the restrictions of coronavirus to end… We are preparing and we will be back, bigger than ever”.
This mood marks a significant change in consciousness since the protests in Iraq at the time of the ‘Arab spring’ in 2011. Following the protests that swept Tunisia and Egypt, thousands came out onto the streets of Baghdad and other cities. Their main demands in the early part of the year were directed against poor services, corruption and against individual governors. The first stage of the protests culminated in the ‘Day of rage’ on 25th February when dozens were killed by security forces.
By April, 8 years after the US invasion of Iraq, up to 100,000 marched through Baghdad organized by al-Sadr to warn the US administration that if it did not withdraw, the Mahdi Army would again take up arms against the occupation.
The failure of the movement in 2011, as elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, to drive through to make radical change left Iraq to suffer even more economic problems, and even worse, further sectarian conflict. The civil war, battle against Islamic state and the intervention by the imperialist powers — the US, Turkey and Iran took tens of thousands of lives and left the country on the brink of complete break up into Kurdistan, and areas populated by Sunni and Shia Muslims.
World Bank demands urgent fiscal stimulus
It may be possible that sections of the ruling elite understand the seriousness of the situation facing Iraq. A World Bank report issued in October 2020 spoke in a dramatic understatement of “A precarious situation, weak healthcare system, ineffective social safety nets, rampant corruption, and dilapidated service delivery, all amplify this fragility and have fueled large-scale protests across the country”. In another report published in Fall 2020 the World Bank Group points out that due to the twin economic and Covid crises, between 2,7 and 5,5 million Iraqis will join the already existing 6,9 million poor. The government’s plan to cut the public wage bill could add a further 1,7 million to this total.
The answer, according to WBG is for the government to “launch an urgent fiscal stimulus to protect the poor and create short-term employment opportunities… maintaining access to essential goods and nutrition, identifying and reaching those most vulnerable to the pandemic and scaling up targeted social protection… engage on active labor market policies and programs to protect jobs and increase jobseekers’ employability…wage support programs in the private sector, on-the-job training, reskilling and entrepreneurship programs, as well as public works programs”.
There is, of course not the slightest chance that the Iraqi government, which exists to defend the interests of the rich ruling elite and their capitalist system will implement such a programme, it simply does not have the money.
With oil accounting for over 95% of Iraq’s exports, over 90% of government revenues and 43% of GDP everything depends on the price of oil. It is expected, according to the IMF, that it will average between $48–50 over the next two years — Iraq’s 2019 budget was based on a price of $62. Even if there was a dramatic increase in the oil price, unlikely given the current state of the world economy, any extra revenues would simply go, as they always do in Iraq into the pockets of the bloated ruling elite.
The Iraqi government is currently approaching international institutions, in particular the IMF, to negotiate a loan of $6–10 billion. This however would do little to cover the expected budget deficit for 2021 of $43 billion.
New crises in Kurdistan
Meanwhile, the imperialist powers continue their interference in the country. The latest moves raise real dangers for the future of Kurdistan where fears are strong that military conflict between the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and Regional government could soon erupt.
Many Kurds are very bitter about the betrayal of their interests by the West, and particularly the U.S. which, during the 2014–17 war promised to support independence for Northern Kurdistan in exchange for the military support provided by the Peshmerga army against Islamic State. Despite the overwhelming support for independence expressed in the 2017 referendum, the U.S. stood by as first Iranian forces rolled into the region around Kirkuk and then, in October 2019, Donald Trump gave the green light to Turkey to invade Northern Syria, bringing them into conflict with Peshmerga fighters there.
In this situation, the Kurdistan government had reached an agreement in 2014 with Baghdad to sell oil produced in the region and Kirkuk through Iraq’s Centralised State Marketing Organisation, in return for which Baghdad would provide money to pay for Kurdistan’s state employees.
But now Russian imperialism in the form of its oil giant “Rosneft” intervened. In 2017 it leant Kurdistan $1,5 billion to be paid for by the sale of oil over the following five years, as well as buying 80% stakes in the potential new oil fields and effective control of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. Now the Kurdistan government is drawing up two versions of its budget, one based on the sale of oil through Baghdad, the other independently to Turkey through “Rosneft”. This Baghdad sees as a clear threat to its “sovereignty”.
This potential worsening of relations is probably what lies behind the recent increase in armed clashes between the Kurdish government Peshmerga troops and those of the PKK. The Kurdish government was quite happy to lean on Turkey to keep the PKK at bay, but relations cooled after the 2017 referendum. Now it sees Turkey’s incursions in the North as an attack on its sovereignty.
Kurdistan powers fear protests
But the Kurdistan government has other problems. During the 2019 protests, it did everything to prevent them developing in part because it feared the loss of autonomy if the calls of the Baghdad protesters for the “de-sectarianisation” of Iraqi politics were to be implemented. Throughout the year protests by teachers, lorry drivers and others over the non-payment of wages and bad services have met repression. Corruption, nepotism, and economic mismanagement are fueling the growing public anger.
In December, a protest by teachers and civil servants in Sulaymaniyah over the non-payment of salaries was attacked by security forces, which just provoked its spread to other cities before it was brutally put down, leaving seven dead, dozens injured, and hundreds arrested.
Now the protests in Kurdistan too are changing in character. They are overwhelmingly youthful, largely spontaneous in character and unlike many protests in previous decades not organized by one or other of the opposition parties. Whereas in the past the protesters anger was often diverted to Baghdad, which the regional government blamed for its ills, they are now directed against the government in Kurdistan itself. Like their counterparts in Baghdad in 2019, Kurdish youth now see the cause of their problems within the system itself and want to see its complete overhaul. What they currently lack is a clear idea of how to do that.
The way forward
While turning away from the corrupt and nepotistic pro-capitalist parties is a positive step, the mistake should not be made that no party is necessary. On the contrary, workers and youth need a party that can develop a program and strategy capable of presenting an alternative to the sectarian based, pro-imperialist regime that is currently destroying Iraq. As a first step the positive spontaneity of the protests need an organized form, democratically elected committees that can unify those involved, discuss strategy and tactics and ensure that the protests are spread to include the organized working class. Such committees can organize the defence of the protests from sectarian attacks by groups such as the ‘blue hats’.
To end poverty, of course, protest is not enough — measures have to be taken to end its root causes. The imperialist powers whose oil and gas companies are so intent on exploiting the country’s natural resources should be driven out so they can be taken into public ownership under democratic workers control and management. The local capitalists and their crony parties too need to be removed from power. An end to corruption will then be possible by ensuring control of all budget expenditures, financial exchanges and the personal bank accounts of all senior state employees and elected representatives by elected committees. By democratically planning the economy the country’s resources can be used to provide the schools, hospitals, jobs and homes that the population needs.
And to change the political system a revolutionary constituent assembly is needed in which all layers of the working population, poor and oppressed are represented that can develop a system free of the in-built sectarianism of the current system, allowing for the self -determination of Kurdistan and establishment of a democratic socialist Iraq as part of a wider socialist confederation of the Levant and entire Middle East
