The Iraqi militias are copying their overmighty cousins in Iran
Democracy is being undermined by gunmen attached to political parties
Agaggle of Western tourists sun themselves on a crowded café pavement in the heart of Baghdad. Hotel lobbies bustle with businessmen from China. Spectators pack the reopened horse racecourse. After a 20-year hiatus, cranes are in action building malls and housing estates. Normality, or at least a version of it, is returning to Iraq. What is less normal is that many of the bulldozers and tractors bear the rifle-and-bullet insignia of the Hashd al-Shaabi, an umbrella group of government-funded, Iran-backed Shia militias.
This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Who runs the show?”
From the June 10th 2023 edition
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