When Prime Minister Adel Abduhl Mahdi demoted Iraq’s popular Counter-terrorism Chief, Lt. Gen. Abdulwahab a-Saadi, in October, 2019, Mahdi was unaware of the protests that this action would create: protests that go on to this day.¹ Iraqis viewed Lt. Gen. al-Saadi as one of the few public figures who resisted involvement in party politics or sectarianism and remember him for his central role in the three-year battle against ISIS. He successfully led several major battles against the Islamic State group (ISIS), most notably with the nine-month battle to recapture the city of Mosul which lead to ISIS’s defeat in 2017.² Iraqis were angered by his removal, resulting in an increase in an already growing resentment against the government. This resentment was strongest amongst Iraqi youths who started protesting two days after.³

Initially, the protests began on social media, with many Iraqi youths on twitter protesting the unpopular decision with the hashtag: “We are all Abdul Wahab Al Saadi.”⁴ Al-Saadi’s removal sparked the protests, as his dismissal served as the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. The citizens of Iraq were frustrated not only by the removal of a beloved national leader, but also with the corruption, growing unemployment, lack of accountability, and lack of public services that characterized their government.⁵ The initial protests against al-Saadi’s dismissal morphed into more general demands for reform, to end corruption and provide jobs and opportunity. Iraqi citizens are well within their right for their demand of wanting more from their country, as elected leaders have failed to deliver on their promises to help address the issues that they face. The country is on the brink of a socio-economic collapse, due to a youth bulge, economic degradation, and dilapidated infrastructure.⁶ The largest age group in Iraq are youths between 19 to 29 years old. For Iraq, this large population of youth in an already struggling economy has resulted in widespread unemployment, along with high levels of political exclusion and perceptions of injustice.⁷ A fifth of Iraqi youth are unable to obtain education and employment in the context of an unemployment rate at 13.8%. The poverty rate has reached 31% and the effects of the pandemic added 2.7 million more people to the 6.9 million who were already below the poverty line.⁸

A lot of this instability stemmed from the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein. Since Saddam Hussein’s ouster in 2003, Iraqi leaders have struggled to create and maintain a democratic government in the wake of decades of dictatorship. U.S. advisors worked to build new parties, recruit and train new military forces, create nascent civil society, and draft new laws since the invasion began.⁹ Additionally, the political balance of power shifted dramatically when the Shia majority claimed the prime minister’s position for the first time, taking it from the Sunni minority. Sectarian tensions broke out and in turn created instability throughout the country. Iraq became vulnerable to regional and international rivalries due to this new insecurity; the sectarian divide between the Shia majority and the Sunni minority have fueled violence and fears of civil war. On top of the instability, Iraq faced difficulties in attempting to revive its economy. When Saddam Hussein ruled the country, most revenues came from oil, a state controlled industry. After the fall of Saddam, the economy of Iraq underwent several changes, including an influx of foreign aid and an improved security environment, as the troop surge led to an increase in foreign investment, especially in energy, construction, and retail sources. Despite this, most of Iraq’s economic development continued relying on its oil industry, that provides 90% of the government’s revenue and represents 80% of its foreign exchange earnings.¹⁰ Unfortunately, these earnings have not been shared equitably across the nation. Several problems have made it difficult for the central government to translate its economic growth into tangible benefits for the people. Iraq has a lack of oil infrastructure, including processing plants, pipelines, and exports facilities; these have been targets of insurgents that seek to disrupt Iraq’s political growth by harming its economic potential. Additionally, corruption within the government has additionally prevented the distribution of economic growth, which has contributed to the economic problems in the country. Facing stark economic issues that have been prevalent and only gotten worse since 2003, Iraqi youths have started expressing openly their discontentment with their government and its lack of accountability.

Dozens of young Iraqis took to the streets when the protests began in October, 2019, demanding improved services and more action to curb corruption. The protests were organized on social media and began peacefully.¹¹ Protestors marched towards Liberation Square, located in the capital Baghdad, which quickly became the epicenter of the protests.¹² The protest started out small and was quickly dispersed by Iraqi security forces. Soon after a call went out to the protestors’ individual social media accounts, urging them to regroup in Liberation Square at 3:00 pm the same day. This time, the numbers had drastically increased by the hundreds.¹³ When some attempted to cross the bridge to reach the fortified Green Zone, where government offices and foreign embassies are located, the protest went from peaceful to violent, as security forces immediately countered with force.¹⁴ Security forces responded with tear gas, spraying down demonstrators with hot water, rubber bullets, and live ammunition.¹⁵ The protest had spread to parts of southern Iraq the following day, including the cities of Basra and Nasiriyah.¹⁶ Three days later, Amnesty International reported that at least 18 protestors and one police officer had been killed during the protests. Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Middle East Research Director, stated “This worrying evidence signals that the Iraqi security forces have resumed their lethal campaign of repression against protestors who are simply exercising their rights to freedom of expression and to peaceful assembly.”¹⁷ Members of the security force also interfered with the media coverage of the events and the government shut down the internet in the surrounding areas in order to prevent further organization through the use of social media apps and imposed a curfew. Only 9 days later, Human Rights Watch reported that the death toll had increased to a staggering 105, with at least 4,000 injured.¹⁸ The use of brutality and force against the protesters shaped the demonstrations’ form and demands. The uprising was initially fueled by Lt. Gen. al-Saadi’s firing, and then morphed into a protest over unemployment, a lack of public services and corruption. Now, the protesters also denounce the elite’s lack of accountability and their willingness to violently suppress protests rather than work to achieve change.¹⁹ The elite in the government responded to the demand for legitimate reform with violence, utilizing the security forces and Iraqi military. As a result, they lost their citizens’ trust in the government system and constitution. The demands of the protesters therefore shifted again. Instead of reform, Iraqis now demand a complete overhaul of their corrupt government.

Iraqi youth makes up the majority of the protestors, with the median age being 20 years old.²⁰ Sajjad Muyed, a second year accounting student, spent more than 120 days in Liberation Square, the focal point of the protests.²¹ Muyed emphasized that it was the students who were the backbone of the protests, noting that high schools and university students had organized several of the protests, with public universities such as Baghdad University and Mustansiriya University having gone on strike for as long as 14 weeks. These protests were also unique, because that the demonstrations were not carried out by certain political or religious blocs, but by the people.²² These demonstrations represent a new wave of grass-root activism, where there is no longer a need for a political party or a leader to back the high levels of mobilization; the citizens are now the driving force.²³

These new grass-root demonstrations ushered in some degrees of change within the government. Five days after the demonstrations began, Baghdad’s governor resigned in response to complaints about security forces having used excessive force.²⁴ President Barham Salih and the Prime Minister also enacted a series of measures in response, including the dismissal of corrupt officials, the provision of land, housing, and interest-free loans for low-income citizens. Unfortunately, despite their promises, the government does not have the funds nor the administrative capacity to enact these bold changes.²⁵  Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi announced his plan to resign, after a 24-hour period of a particular violent protest in which security forces killed at least 45 demonstrators.²⁶ While his resignation offered authorities a chance to begin enacting real change and a chance to elect someone that would represent the needs of the people, Mohammad Alawi was selected by the elite, not elected by the people. Mohammed Alawi was quickly rejected by the protest movement, because they saw him as a part of the very group they wanted to remove from power: the ruling elite. Alawi resigned after four weeks of trying to gain support. Intelligence Chief Mustafa al-Kadhimi was chosen to replace him as prime minister-designate.²⁷ Kadhimi is seen as a political independent and has demonstrated that he is serious in addressing the grievances of the people. In response to the continued demonstrations, he moved to hold an early parliamentary election on June 6, 2021 and promised to deliver justice to those killed during the violent police and militia crackdown; yet, once again, Kadhimi has become just another example of a politician who has failed to deliver on their promises.²⁸ Little to no progress has been made to deliver justice to those who lost their lives. The promised early parliamentary elections were postponed until October 10, 2021. Kurdish political analyst, Mohammad Bakhtiar, believes that it is more likely that the vote will take place in May 2022.²⁹

Analysts believe that the odds are against the Iraqi protestors, for several key reasons. First, protestors remain in a perilous situation, due to the impunity with which militia groups and state-sanctioned security forces have used violence against them.³⁰ Militia groups are accountable to no-one and wield large amounts of influence and power. To make matters worst, protesters lost their most important buffer: Muqtada al-Sadr and his Sadrist movement. He used to act as a buffer between the Iraqi government and the protest movement, as he worked to prevent the government from using violence as a measure to stop the protests. The cleric struck a deal with the Iraqi government and Iraq’s proxies that resulted in the withdrawal of his support; they no longer have the protection of at least one of the major political actors in the country.³¹

Second, the environment in which they are protesting is not conducive to the wide-scale reform that they are fighting for. The unfortunate truth is that there are very few major actors in Iraq who support the movement. Moreover, the international community is much more aligned with the Iraqi ruling class. In the post-war climate in Iraq, there is too much at stake for any external major actors to support an overthrow of Iraq’s political system or further regime changes. Furthermore, the very design of the Iraqi political system prevents change. The government, comprised of formal and informal, state and parastate actors dominate, shape, and manage all the power over the structures of the government. The process to enact reform requires participation from at least some of those actors, all of which have been unwilling to change the status quo.³²

Despite overwhelming evidence that the protests will be largely ineffective in bringing large-scale reform, other analysts are confident that the protests will continue and that the waves of street mobilization will persevere, as long as the government continues to ignore the demands of the people.³³ Protests, however, have waned due to a number of factors. Protestors have been brutalized at the hands of Iraqi security forces and armed militias, with many having been arrested, beaten, and killed. Amnesty International estimates that since the protests began, over 600 have been killed, with tens of thousands more injured. The persistence of the use of violence and fear of injury and even death has dissuaded many from continuing to protest. Furthermore, Covid-19 has resulted in the numbers of protestors dwindling even further.³⁴ Despite a decrease in the size of the peaceful protests, the Iraqi youths are still working to change their country through a new avenue: elections.

Local media was informed by election officials that 260 political parties had registered to compete in the upcoming elections, with 60 of the political parties newly registered. Some of these new political parties were created by the younger Iraqis who were the driving force behind the anti-government protests. Dr. Alaa al-Rikabi, a prominent figure in the initial protests, announced the creation of a new party that is aimed at challenging Iraq’s political elite class and representing the country’s youth; this new party is called Imitad.³⁵ While these new parties are small, inexperienced, and underfunded when compared to the major Iraqi political parties, thanks to new election rules created as a result of the protests, they might have a chance in the upcoming election. The new electoral law divided each of Iraq’s 18 provinces into 83 electoral districts and allocates one parliamentary seat per 100,000 people. It also ended the practice of political parties running on unified list, which allowed them to easily monopolize all seats in a given province. This new electoral law created greater inclusion for independent political candidates, a key demand for protestors that are working to get rid of the pervasive corrupt parties.³⁶ Now, these new political parties have a chance of winning seats in the upcoming election and enact some of the changes for which they have been fighting.

What initially started as a small protest concerning the removal of a beloved Iraqi Lieutenant General soon morphed into nationwide protests comprised of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis youths demanding whole-scale reforms from their government.³⁷ The protests have grown to become Iraq’s biggest anti-government protest movement since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein.³⁸ Despite dwindling protest numbers, it is clear that Iraqi youths have not given up hope. They continue to protest in Nasiriyah, with citizens demanding the resignation of their governor, because of deteriorating public services in the region.³⁹ Protesters are moving from taking to the streets to taking to the ballot boxes, with some even running for office themselves. Whether they will be able to accomplish all of their goals, only the future will tell. However, one thing is clear: Iraqi youths will not give up their sustained fight!