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For the people of Iraq, the fallout from the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 continues to this day, sometimes in unexpected and violent ways. That is the message that the Iraqis featured in FRONTLINEs Once Upon a Time in Iraq emphasize time and again. The documentary recounts their stories of life under Saddam Hussein, the war, the occupation, and the years of chaos that followed from sudden explosions during the days of sectarian violence, to mass killing under the brutal reign of ISIS.

Some of them shared what has happened in their lives and in Iraq since they filmed with FRONTLINE.

In the documentary:

Sally Mars was six years old when the U.S.-led invasion began in March 2003. In the documentary, she recalled hearing shooting and explosions. I remember that a missile hit very close to our house, she said. And my mom, she threw herself on top of us, me and my brothers. The house was shaking, we thought it would come down on us.

Whats happened since?

I really feel like Ive changed since we filmed the interview, Mars said. I feel like Im 50 years older now.

In October 2019, mass demonstrations erupted in Iraq as people rallied against corruption, lack of services, and high unemployment rates. It was a main turning point, she said.

The protests were met with a violent response. Bodies were dropping on the streets and the firing just continued with smoke everywhere, while blood flowed from the victims like waterfalls.

Angry and resolved, Mars joined the protests on Oct. 26. Everything inside me changed as I walked on my own through the demonstrations, she said. People she didnt know gave her water and a mask for tear gas. She saw people cooking food for the protesters and helping the injured. From that point, she said: I learned what it meant to be someone that loves their country, and what it means to fight for your rights, and for your freedom in the face of death.

The Iraq war changed the entirety of our society for the worse and destroyed Iraqis as individuals, Mars said. Our generation started rebuilding the strength in personality of the Iraqi individual by reclaiming our original roots and culture.

In the documentary:

When Ahmed Albasheer first saw American soldiers in Iraq, he said he felt hope. I had this dream that my country is becoming one of the good countries in the Middle East, or maybe in the world. But as the occupation continued, he saw the rise of sectarian division, with people carrying two pieces of identification one for Sunni checkpoints and one for Shia checkpoints. In the documentary, Albasheer said America did two major bad things in Iraq: the first was the invasion, and the second was withdrawing before Iraq was ready.

Whats happened since?

Albasheer said he felt the height of hope last October when massive anti-government protests began. The young men took to the streets to challenge the government and to demand a homeland I would say that my hopes were very high at that point, he said. I believed that everything was possible then.

Since then, he fears that the militias have grown even more politically influential, and its become dangerous and nearly impossible for young people who want to change the system. Protesters, he said, are not only facing a corrupt political system but super powers.

I cant see a clear future for Iraq at the moment, Albasheer said, noting that hundreds of protesters have been killed.

Anyone who wants to express their opinion will either be killed, bribed, or get death threats, escape the country, and speak from exile like me and many others do, he said.

In the documentary:

In Once Upon a Time in Iraq, Um Qusay recalled that life in her town under Saddam Hussein meant hunger and war. We used to eat chicken feed, she said. There was no rest, we were always at war. Wars that were not even necessary. Um Qusay also lived through the bloody and brutal reign of ISIS. She told the story of how she and fellow townspeople helped hide Iraqi army cadets who were being targeted by ISIS. When asked why she risked her life to protect those men, she said, The reason was that first of all, they are Iraqi.

Whats happened since?

Since she filmed the interview, Um Qusay said that Iraq is getting worse and worse by the day. She said, Theres a lot of pressure on regular civilians murder, massacres, demonstrations I dont know how to explain this, but we have no hope.

Um Qusay added: There needs to be complete oversight on those governing Iraq, so that its made sure that theyre doing whats right for the country.

In the documentary:

Tahany Saleh was a university student when ISIS took over the Iraqi city of Mosul in June 2014. Then, her life came to a standstill. I stopped going to university. We stopped going into the street, she said. As the Iraq army and the anti-ISIS coalition fought ISIS, Saleh was among the civilians caught in the cross fire. The army was bombing and ISIS was bombing. And we were right in the middle.

Whats happened since?

Saleh was interviewed for Once Upon a Time in Iraq shortly after the war to retake Mosul from ISIS. I perceived life in an indescribably intense way, she recalled. I had an overwhelming sense of survival. I had a lot of hope for change. There was a sense of possibility that we were going to revive the country, bring the city back, be safe, be stable.

Since that time, she has found herself disappointed. Things are very difficult now, very difficult, because we feel extremely let down as Iraqis, she said. Violence has increased, along with the power and influence of militias. Those who call for change are targeted for assassination, she said. I dont feel safe. I dont feel like my family and friends are safe, she said. I fear looking at my phone because I cant handle finding out that another person has been assassinated for speaking out, for trying to improve the country.

Ultimately, Saleh wishes for a better future and for Americans to better understand Iraqis. I hope that things change and that we can go back to dreaming again, she said. I just want to be able to hope.

Vanessa Bowles contributed reporting.

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Four Iraqis on Searching For Hope 17 Years After the Iraq War - FRONTLINE

The clocks struck 8.19pm on 6 July when Hisham al-Hashemi pulled his white Jeep Cherokee up outside his house in the eastern Baghdad neighbourhood of Zayouna.

It seems the prominent specialist in jihadist groups and star of Iraqi satellite news channels paid no attention to the motorcyclists parked approximately 20 metres from his home.

As Hashimi turned his car towards the front door of his house, the biker closest to him, hooded and dressed all in black, ran over to the car and attempted to fire his automatic rifle. The Kalashnikov only fired a single bullet, but it was enough to paralyse Hisham's movement, a senior police officer involved in the investigations told Middle East Eye.

Surveillance camera footage shows the gun jamming, and the gunman pausing briefly as he tried to fix the defect. Eventually, he instead pulled a handgun out of his jacket, ran towards the drivers window, fired several bullets towards Hashimi and withdrew.

Hashimis murder took less than a minute. In many respects, it resembled dozens of assassinations carried out in Baghdad and the central and southern provinces against activists, journalists and influencers over the past three years.

But it was different.

The 47-year-old was an expert in Sunni militant groups in Iraq and had helped the Iraqi security services and US forces dismantle or neutralise dozens of them over the past 13 years.

Because of this, hed made many enemies. However, few in the popularmedia and political circles, including those close to Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, believed the Islamic State group and its ilk were responsible.

Instead accusations have been pointed at Shia armed groups, in particular Kataeb Hezbollah, Iraqs powerful Iran-backed paramilitary and one of Kadhimis fiercest and most aggressive opponents.

Those close to Kadhimi believe Hashimis killing was only the harbinger of more to come and a direct challenge to the prime minister himself.

Intelligence sources told MEE that more of the prime ministers entourage are in the assailants sights.

The assassination, an adviser of the prime minister told MEE, was a message of intimidation to Kadhimi and his teams members from the gang of Katyusha, a nickname for Kataeb Hezbollah referencing the rockets used by the group to attack US interests in Iraq.

"The message clearly suggests that they can reach us any time, and that he [Kadhimi] is too weak to protect his people, the adviser said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

However, two more of Kadhimis advisers insist it is too early to confirm that Kataeb Hezbollah lies behind the killing, preferring instead to describe the culprit as a radical Shia group.

'We know that our names are all on the list, and that each of us must think that he is the next'

- Kadhimi adviser

We believe that they will target the members of Kadhimis inner circle with the aim of challenging him and dragging him into a traditional confrontation, which they have all the tools to win at this stage, one said.

"We know that our names are all on the list, and that each of us must think that he is the next.

Hashimis assassination and the danger now posed to his allies is an existential threat for the premiers fledgling two-month rule.

All of Kadhimis supporters and opponents, inside and outside Iraq, are wondering how he will respond.

Recent history suggests it may be confrontational.

Journalists and politicians who worked with Kadhimi or met him in exile in the 1990s describe him as a moderate, ambitious, very polite, a good listener and a man who does not tend to verbally or physically clash with his critics or opponents.

The prime minister tended to mix with intellectuals and writers. He built a reputation as someone who excelled at documenting violence against victims of the Baathist government, and managed to enjoy good relations with all parties involved in local and regional conflicts.

Since the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein, these characteristics have mostly stayed the same, according to a number of former colleagues who worked with him to establish the state-owned Iraqiya Media Network and magazine The Weekly.

Although Kadhimi helped establish many media projects, including the international website Al Monitor, he did not draw attention as a journalist or as a thinker, according to a prominent Iraqi journalist who has known the prime minister since their days working in the opposition against Saddam.

'A man of conviction': Grief and fury greet assassination of Iraqi analyst

Even during his four-year period as head of the intelligence service, Kadhimi avoided clashes with all of the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish political forces or Iranian-backed armed factions.

A Shia paramilitary commander close to Kataeb Hezbollah told MEE he managed this "despite having information proving that most of them were involved in criminal, economic and intelligence crimes", which would be enough to put them in jail or at least politically terminate them.

Yet since assuming the premiership, the man once known for operating sensitively from the shadows has taken several provocativestances.

He has surrounded himself with a number of researchers, journalists and activists who led or supported the protest movement that toppled his Iran-backed predecessor Adel Abdul Mahdi.

Among them are Hisham Dawood, a researcher in political anthropology;Harith Hasan, a political researcher;Mushreq Abbas, a journalist; Kadhim al-Sahlani, an academic and activist;Aqeel Abbas, an academic;Ahmed al-Mulla Talal, a TV anchor; and Ahmed al-Rikabi, a journalist.

Munqith Dagher, CEO of the Baghdad-based Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies think tank, describes Kadhimi as an expert in the game of media, which is why he has surrounded himself with media personalities.

His entourage, Dagher says, has been assembled in a parallel prime ministers office, with Kadhimi wary of shunting Abdul Mahdis staff aside.

He is a compromise man, so he did not make any major changes in the old prime minister's office staff, but he also created a small parallel office to which his special team, his group, and his advisers joined, Dagher says.

However, the prime ministers circle is seen by the Iran-backed factions as hostile to them, seeking revenge and keeping them from power, according to one of Kadhimis advisers.

Meanwhile, Kataeb Hezbollah has made no secret for its disdain for the man they hold responsible for the death of the armed factions founder, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was killed by a US drone strike alongside Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in January.

Ignoring Irans request to support - or at least permit - Kadhimis premiership, Kataeb Hezbollah has missed no opportunity to attack him through their media outlets, and stepped up the rate of rocket attacks targeting US assets in Baghdads Green Zone and Iraqi military bases.

In response, Kadhimi last month ordered the Counter-Terrorism Squad to raid one of the factions headquarters and arrest its fighters there.

It was a startling escalation-one that led to Kataeb Hezbollah vowing to teach Kadhimi a lesson because he "dared to storm one of its headquarters and arrest a number of its fighters", a commander of the armed group told MEE.

While Kadhimi's opponents were busy digging up the past of his entourage and plotting massive media campaigns to discredit and question their loyalties, the prime minister busied himself with elevating figures free from Iranian influence.

Over the past six weeks, he has issued a raft of decrees that have shaken up the militarys leadership and eased Irans grip on Iraqs security forces.

He assigned Lieutenant-General Abdul Amir Yarallah as chief of staff of the army, Lieutenant-General Abdel Amir al-Shammari as deputy of the commander of joint operations, and Lieutenant-General Abdul Wahab al-Saadi as commander of the Counter-Terrorism Squad. He also appointed Major-General Fayez al-Mamouri as director of military intelligence.

Not satisfied with those positions alone, Kadhimi removed Faleh al-Fayadh, head of the Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary, from his roles as the national security adviser and in the National Security Service, which he had run by proxy since 2009.

The Baghdad raid that put Kadhimi and Kataeb Hezbollah on a collision course

Lieutenant-General Abdul-Ghani al-Asadi was made head of the National Security Service, and Qassim al-Araji, the former interior minister, national security adviser.

Kadhimi also drew a clear line between combat forces on the one hand and military intelligence directorate and the agency tasked with probing military violations on the other. The National Security Agencys database was separated from the Iran-backed paramilitaries own security directorate, and he ordered the intelligence service to take command of the security of communications and information.

Suddenly, Kadhimi had a level of control over Iraqs military and security agencies unseen in years, and retained effective command of the intelligence agency he had just vacated.

All those military leaders are known for not being subject to the influence of the Iran-linked factions, a prominent former Iraqi intelligence officer and a friend of Kadhimi, who declined to be named, told MEE.

"Kadhimi is Iraqs boldest prime minister, and quickly rearranged the militarys house. All the prime ministers who preceded him were not able to identify the defects in the military, but Kadhimis work in intelligence over the past years helped him identify the deficiencies.

These figures are Kadhimis true team, the former officer said, describing it as a military government that the prime minister may soon use with effect.

As for the team of journalists and researchers, he used them to distract his opponents. He threw them to his opponents to busy themselves, and went to work elsewhere without disturbances, he said.

Kadhimi currently surrounds himself with two of the most dangerous forces in Iraq, the media and the military.

This has provoked his opponents, especially the forces linked to Iran.

They say that he mimics Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was also an intelligence officer, and that he seeks to strike his opponents unilaterally while in power, including the armed factions leaders and fighters.

The raid on Kataeb Hezbollahs headquarters last month and the arrest of its fighters, in addition to the changes in military staff, have intensified the suspicions of Kadhimis opponents that he is targeting them, and enflamed tensions.

Hashemis assassination was one of the consequences of this tension, one of Kadhimis advisers told MEE, adding that the premier does not seek to emulate Putin's personality, but he wants the law to have teeth.

This political system has reached the brink and will not produce anything after today, and therefore he [Kadhimi] is convinced that the moment of real change has arrived. But unfortunately it came at a very critical time and coincided with a severe financial crisis, a major collapse in oil prices, and a deadly pandemic, the adviser added.

He seeks to empower the law, and as such, he tries to bite into the chaos that engulfs the country, whenever an opportunity exists. But the resources and capabilities of the supporters of anarchy are still far greater than the state's supporters."

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The Iraqi power struggle behind a murder in Baghdad - Middle East Eye

When, at the end of May, President Donald Trump threatened to gun down looters in the streets of Minneapolis, some heard echoes of Paul Bremer. The top civilian administrator presiding over the occupation of Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004, Bremer is usually remembered for his decisions to disband the countrys military and fire countless state employees under the imperatives of de-Baathification. Because the viceroys reckless policies kicked off an insurgency, its often forgotten that the George W. Bush administration dispatched him to restore law and order to the Middle East. Upon arriving, he sought to build a muscular Iraqi police force in collaboration with former New York Police Department commissioner Bernie Kerik. Bremer also tried to change the militarys rules of engagement to allow American soldiers to fire on looters drifting through Baghdads debris-peppered streets.

Read against current events, anecdotes of Bremers first days in Iraq bring to mind Stuart Schraders observation that the history of US empire is the history of policing experts teaching indigenous cops how to patrol and investigate like Americans ... But the flow is not one-way: these institutions also return home transformed. The crises of the past few years reveal that this dialectic extends beyond law enforcement to encompass the entire metropole. The Pentagons growing transfers of military surplus left over from the Iraq War to police departments correlate with a coarsening of the United States political culture. And it is with an eye toward this broader embrace of brutality and impunity that Brendan James argues that the Iraq War is a skeleton key for where we are now.

James and Noah Kulwin are the creators and cohosts of a new podcast on the war and the pathologies that emerged in its wake, aptly titled Blowback. Over the course of ten episodes, the two sketch out what they describe as a counter-history of Americas forays into Iraq. Listeners working their way through the series will hear clips from CNN and MSNBC broadcasts, and anecdotes drawn from the reportage of mainstream journalists, like George Packer and Bob Woodward. What emerges from the synthesis constructed by the hosts is a criticism of these conventional secondary sources. James and Kulwin paint a portrait of a deluded and venal elite convinced that the exercise of American power today will solve the problems created by the exercise of American power in the past.

The hosts include liberals among that elite, taking aim at Democratic politicians who voted to authorize the use of military force against Iraq, as well as celebrities and media figures who supported the invasion. Kulwin, whose essays on foreign policy and technology appear in the gaggle of young or revivified publications associated with the Bernie Sanders left, is a contributing editor to Jewish Currents. James also writes for publications like the Baffler and Jacobin, but he is perhaps most well known for his past role as the producer of the sardonic podcast Chapo Trap House.

It is no surprise, then, that the comical tone of the aforementioned program finds its way into Blowback an episode describing insurgents in occupied Iraq is titled The #Resistance, and the historical narrative is occasionally interrupted by the voice of Saddam Hussein, played by comedic actor H. Jon Benjamin, renowned for his roles in Archer and Bobs Burgers. But in spite of these occasional fits of humor, Blowback is not frivolous. The writing, facilitated by Jamess deft scoring, shifts registers where appropriate. For example, the trauma and tragedy of the civil war unleashed by the invasion of Iraq is imparted to listeners by an account of a father searching for his missing son among the corpses in Baghdads overflowing morgues. The podcasts levity comes at the expense of the unaccountable political and military figures that either negligently enabled or perpetrated atrocities in Iraq. Faced with epochal crimes for which there may be no redress, laughter becomes a kind of sovereignty, a triumph over ones own powerlessness.

The substance of Kulwin and Jamess critique of conventional histories of the war in Iraq is also serious. To begin with, there is the matter of chronology. Typically, the start of the war is dated to George W. Bushs invasion in March 2003. Barack Obamas troop withdrawal in December 2011 marks its conclusion. In Blowback, the start and end dates are hazier. They fold into a broader history of Anglo-American marauding in Mesopotamia from the 1920s to the present. Special attention is paid to the inconclusive first Gulf War and the unprecedentedly severe sanctions regime of the 1990s, both of which hollowed out Iraqs economy and political institutions long before Bremer began issuing his ruinous decrees.

Accounts of the war with wider historical lenses often bring into focus the sectarian polarization that marred Iraq in the aftermath of the invasion. But James and Kulwin do not dwell on the topic of sectarianism. Instead, they pay an unusual amount of attention to another social cleavage that runs through both Iraq and the United States today: class. This shift in emphasis has its downsides. Blowback fails to convey the malleability of sectarian identity, and to record the myriad of ways in which American interventions in Iraq reified and exacerbated communal tensions along this axis. The widespread view, echoed by even Barack Obama, that contemporary sectarian conflicts date back millennia, absolves American policymakers of responsibility for destructive decisions, like creating a quota system on the Iraqi Governing Council.

On the other hand, the authentically socialist portrayal of Iraq as a flash point in a global class war casts the beneficiaries and victims of empire in a fresh light. In the first episode, the hosts explain that the British Empires exploitation of Iraqs oil resources weakened restive coal miners unions back in the UK. In the final episode, listeners learn of Iraqs extensive poverty around 20 percent of the residents of the oil-rich country lived off of $2.20 a day for many years after the invasion and of the vast fortunes of the architects of the war Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Dick Cheney are all multimillionaires. The inchoate suggestion borne by these snippets is that somehow global inequality and perpetual interventions in the politics of the Middle East are bound together.

Another of Blowbacks virtues is its use of didactic character studies of war supporters, like Ahmed Chalabi, and Bush administration officials, like Douglas Feith, to convey criticism of conventional narratives of the war. Perhaps the most interesting of these portraits is of Donald Rumsfeld, who Kulwin and James redefine as a zealous and ultimately effective proponent of neoliberalism from his time as chief of staff in the Ford administration to his tenure as secretary of defense in the Bush administration. Upon resigning in disgrace at the height of Iraqs civil war in 2006, Rumsfeld was roundly criticized for his cost-cutting, small-footprint approach to warfare marked by an overreliance on military contractors and advanced technology. But something akin to Rumsfelds military doctrine has since become hegemonic. Despite Rumsfelds ouster, the United States continued its drift toward high-tech drone warfare, special operations forces raids, and overwhelming air power as its primary modes of war. The fleeting gains of Bushs vaunted 2007 troop surge, which signaled to some a move away from Rumsfelds approach, evaporated under ISISs blitzkrieg on Mosul in 2014.

The podcasts most important lesson is that the war was not a fait accompli. The damage wrought was foreseeable. Against Secretary of State Powell, who persuaded liberal opinion makers to support the invasion in spite of his own personal reservations, there was foreign secretary Robin Cook, who resigned from Tony Blairs government over the decision to go to war. Jingoistic reporting and editorializing in the pages of the New York Times and the New Yorker did not erase massive anti-war marches in the streets of New York and other capitals around the world. And in opposition to those legislators, like Joe Biden, who bought into the Bush administrations case for war, there were 156 dissenters in the halls of Congress who voted nay on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq.

In Teju Coles novel Open City, the main character, Julius, reads aloud from a newspaper to an elderly mentor, Professor Saito. The year is 2007, the Iraq War has reached a new nadir, and Julius, reading from a Manhattan apartment, cannot contain his dismay. Professor Saito responds to his uneasy student:

I felt that way about a different war ... You go through that experience only once, the experience of how futile war can be ... There are towns whose names evoke a real horror in you because you have learned to link those names with atrocities, but, for the generation that follows yours, those names will mean nothing; forgetting doesnt take long. Fallujah will be as meaningless to them as Daejeon is to you.

If only. American troops remain stationed in Iraq. Those most responsible for the atrocities of the war continue to play an outsize role on our national stage. Until they exit, no generation will follow that of the Iraq War. And until a new kind of leadership takes the reins of American foreign policy, no generation will follow that of the Korean War. Fallujah and Daejon will resurface as new Fallujahs and Daejons are perpetrated.

It is easy to sympathize with the contributor who, in an episode of Blowback, remarks: I wish I could get this shit out of my brain and stop knowing or caring about these people, but theyre all still here ... theyre all still planning the next war.

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The Iraq War Is the Skeleton Key - Jacobin magazine

Once Upon a Time in Iraq9pm, BBC Two

The film-maker James Bluemel, whose powerful 2016 series Exodus told the story of the European refugee crisis, turns his attention to documenting the legacy of the Iraq war. Told through first-person testimony, this series interviews Iraqi civilians, soldiers and journalists, who recount their histories of the war. We open with the story of Waleed Neysif, who was only 18 when the war began in 2003 and who initially supported it in the hope the country would be westernised. Ammar Kalia

This fly-on-the-wall documentary following the West Midlands ambulance service during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic is tough to watch. From the loneliness of an ex-nurse to call-handlers cramming five weeks training into a fortnight, it shows the human cost of the virus. Hannah Verdier

The Australian psychological thriller continues. With reporters having got wind of the story, the police suggest Jack gives a press conference on the hospital steps. Meanwhile, Hayden finally catches up with Agatha and is introduced to his new son, Rory (I thought you were making him up!). Ali Catterall

The security at the West Orchards shopping centre in Coventry are fighting a losing battle with the on average 70 people who shoplift from their stores each month. This series goes behind the scenes to witness how they evade detection and the work of the guards tasked to stop them. AK

Steve Buscemi reprises his enviable role as God and Daniel Radcliffe as his Earthbound angel in the second season of this comedy. Leaving the plush confines of Heaven Inc behind, the pair head to the medieval era, where they attempt to right the vast inequalities faced by the plague-stricken public. AK

This US series shadows the treasure hunter John Casey as he seeks out a fortune buried in the Philippines by a Japanese general. Since this is the launch of season two, it is not much of a spoiler to reveal that progress has been slow, although a satellite scan of the region turns up some leads. Graeme Virtue

Macbeth (Justin Kurzel, 2015), 11.10pm, Film4Kurzels gory telling of the Scottish play stars Michael Fassbender as a commanding Macbeth, a warrior would-be king slipping into a delusional netherworld; Marion Cotillard fascinates as Lady Macbeth, grieving for their dead child. There is a wild beauty to this classic tragedy. Paul Howlett

ANZ Premiership netball: Tactix v Magic 8am, Sky Sports Main Event. Coverage from the fifth round.

Berlin Bett1 Aces tennis 11am, Eurosport 2. Coverage of the opening quarter-final.

Premier League football: Manchester United v Southampton 7.30pm, Sky Pick. Free-to-air clash from Old Trafford.

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TV tonight: the story of the Iraq war by the people who lived through it - The Guardian

Western nations have been involved to varying degrees in nation-building throughout the Middle East and Central Asia for over a century now. However, the success record is rather spotty. The war in Iraq and its aftermath is one of the latest examples of such an effort that has not gone as planned. There have been many analyses on why nation-building in Iraq has failed.Blithe assumptions and careless planninghas been blamed, as well as thepoor performance of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the transitional government of Iraq established after the US ground campaign.A lack of clear policyhas been another culprit. However, at the core of these failures lies Western nationsmisunderstanding of the unique culture of the nations that are being supported.

Growing up in two very different cultures, my parents Turkish and my environment German, I was acutely aware of what living in and between cultures entailed from a very young age. I leveraged these experiences during my time as a Mobile Training Team (MTT) commander in Iraq in 2019. In an effort to build on those experiences and the unique perspective gained, Id like to present some of my subjective observations on nation-building in Iraq today and share where I see potential for improvement.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE SKILLS FOR BETTER CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING

Language is key to understanding a culture, but few members of Western militaries speak any Arabic. I am guilty of this myself. All the Arabic I speak, I picked up as a child in a multicultural environment, a complement to the Arabic loan words in the Turkish language. This situation leads to two problems.

First of all, it creates an unhealthy reliance and dependence on interpreters. In The American Military Advisor: Dealing with Senior Foreign Officials in the Islamic World, Michael J. Metrinko posits that:

[T]he ideal advisor should be fluent in the local language, but this ideal is rarely met. Professional relationships, accuracy, and security will all be affected by the advisors inability to speak the language. Most advisors use interpreters, making it difficult to establish a truly effective relationship with the senior local official they are advising.

This is not solely true for American advisors, but for any Western national engaging in nation-building. Metrinko goes on to define the problem with interpreters:

In the real world, the interpreter is more likely a local citizen who left his country decades in the past and has only returned on a contract, or someone whose parents are from the country in question and who learned the language from his family while growing up in America, or a local citizen who studied English in school. None of these is likely to be a formally trained interpreter, and, at best, the American advisor will be provided translation which will only be approximately correct. Facts, figures, and details will often be mistranslated, nuances of meaning may be totally lost.

This is an incredibly important point. Languages are complex, and the use of untrained interpreters who have very little knowledge in the subject matter will most probably lead to a loss of nuance, detail, and in the end, meaning. To illustrate this, let us take the Clausewitzian concept of Schwerpunkt. The German word Schwerpunkt means center of gravity, i.e. an objects center of gravity. In German doctrinal thinking (and the way Clausewitz meant it), the word Schwerpunkt means main effort. However, the US military has built a myriad of concepts around the idea of center of gravity, claiming to derive these ideas from Clausewitz when they are in fact far away from Schwerpunkt as Germans understand it. This misunderstanding and loss of nuance has developed between two closely related languages in close geographic proximity which have influenced each other for centuries. Imagine the potential for errors in languages as distinct as German and Arabic, or English and Pashto.

Languages are complex, and the use of untrained interpreters who have very little knowledge in the subject matter will most probably lead to a loss of nuance, detail, and in the end, meaning.

Second,you cannot understand a society if you cannot understand how its people view the world, and for that speaking the language is key. I have often witnessed how people from different cultures can fail to get along without any ill intent towards each other, solely due to the fact that their cultures judge different actions differently. Expand this to the level of nations, and it becomes even more problematic, like that one time President Clinton apologized for bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade while wearing a polo shirt, or when President Bush used the word crusade in his famous speech after 9/11. This lack of language and cultural understanding can also lead us to draw the wrong conclusions about how and why certain events take place, as might be happening with the Anbar Awakening, for example.

This situation is further compounded by the fact that European nations fail to tap into their pool of Arab immigrants and citizens with Arab heritage. Countries like France, Belgium, the Netherlands, or my own Germany have significant Arabic speaking populations, many of them the offspring of families that have lived there for many generations. Encouraging them to join the armed forces, not only as language interpreters but as full-fledged soldiers, will ensure that decisionmakers at all levels have access to this treasure trove of cultural knowledge.

IRAQI ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND THE RISE OF POPULAR MOBILIZATION FORCES

Efforts to provide a Western mantle for societies in the Middle East in general and Iraq specifically really took off with the break-up of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I. This reorganization of societies with disregard to their underlying culture led to various degrees of failure. In the realm of militaries,the reasons why trying to organize Arab militaries along Western organizational thinking has failed are manifold, however, they can be reduced to one common denominator: utter and active ignorance of how various Arab societies are organized.

Ethnicity, tribe, region, religion, sect might not matter in our polities, they do matter a lot in many societies around the world, though. Thats whyIraqs Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) have been so much more successful than the regular Iraqi army. Officially, the PMF were formed after the collapse of the Iraqi military in the wake of ISILs offensive to overtake Iraq. Iraqi cleric Ali al-Sistani had called the Iraqi people to rise and fight against ISIL. It is assumed that al-Sistani called Iraqis to join the military to support the fight. However, it seems like this was misunderstood and Iraqis self-organized into militias along tribal, religious, and ethnic lines. That is one part of the PMF. The other part consists of armed groups that existed in Iraq even before the current war with ISIL, some whom have fought against Coalition forces in the past (and some who still fight against Coalition forces). However, the PMF played an important role in the defeat of ISIL in Iraq.

The debate on how Western nations should deal with the PMF is still going on, but no matter how the debate goes, Western governments have to understand that trying to force Western organizational structures and thinking onto Iraqi society will not lead to the hoped-for success.

THE VALUE OF EDUCATION VS. GETTING MORE STUFF

Western nations, especially European nations, are really interested in infusing their know-how into the Iraqi military. The problem is that most Iraqi soldiers are not interested in Western know-how. Many Iraqis just dont see the same value in the training that we can provide them as we do. The reasons for that are beyond the scope of this article and in the end, they dont matter. What matters is that we are trying to sell something which Iraqis have no interest in buying. Mind you, most will never say this to someones face. They are way too polite to do so.

However, there is one thing we can offer that the Iraqi military is interested in: stuff. The Iraqi military is interested in all the gear Western nations can provide, the more Gucci the gear, the better.Never mind the complexity of these systems and that training is necessary to learn how to use them. It seems to me like Iraqi planners and officers accept the training provided by Western nations as the price they have to pay to get the gear.

Many in the West might be wondering:what happened with Iraqs oil revenue?Iraq was OPECs second-largest oil exporter in 2018, after all. Incidentally,many Iraqis have been asking the same question. Very little of these oil revenues trickle down to the units on the ground. When visiting Iraqi military installations, the state of disrepair and decay almost immediately catches the eye. Here lies the opportunity for Western nations to bring change: instead of offering training that is unwanted or handing over complex gear that needs lots of maintenance and training, Western nations can help the Iraqi military with infrastructure projects: buildings, air conditioners, sanitary facilities, classrooms, etc. This is a win-win situation for everybody. Western nations get to help Iraq in a direct, measurable, and highly visible way. Iraqi soldiers get an improvement in living quality. Nobody has to sit through classes they dont see value in, and nobody has to teach classes which are not interesting to the audience.

Efforts by Western nations to help the Iraqi military, even if they are well-intentioned, often spring from ignorance of Iraqs society and culture. There are better ways to help Iraq, but it is important to learn the language, understand the society, and tailor solutions to their needs.There are civilian organizations that are already doing thisand can serve as an example. Otherwise, we are simply wasting taxpayers money and our soldiers time.

Ilhan Akcay is a German infantry officer with a BSc and MSc in Aerospace Engineering from the Technical University of Munich. He writes about training and readiness on his blog School of War. All opinions expressed in this article are his own and his only.

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Institution Building in Iraq Isn't Working, Here's Why - Inkstick