Since 25 October 2019 at least 310 people have been killed protesting across Iraq. The movement began, in a way, in early October 2019, but in reality has been simmering for much longer. Widespread discontent with government services, lack of economic opportunity, security, and oppressive corruption was further inflamed in September 2018 by tainted water supplied by Iran to the Iraqi city of Basra, which left 80,000+ sick. More broadly, popular opinion had shifted against Iran and the Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces/PMF) following the battlefield defeat of the Islamic State group (IS) and the recapture of Mosul. Forces once seen as a stopgap measure to forestall the loss of the entire country to IS were now seen as overbearing, aggressive, and corrupt.
On 27 September 2019, Lieutenant General Abdel-Wahab Al-Saedi, commander of the widely-adored Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Forces (ICTF), was transferred via Prime Ministerial decree from ICTF to the Ministry of Defense. Known for his non-sectarian, Iraq-first mentality, the firing of Al-Saedi set off waves of complaints online, mainly from Iraqi youth. The youth are the key factor in Iraq’s current unrest.
With many of them born after the 1991 Gulf War (or, increasingly, after the 2003 American invasion of Iraq), the youth of Iraq have grown up in an environment of impossible chaos, violence, and instability. Perhaps only the people of Afghanistan know better the agony of so many years of war. And so in early October, protests began in Baghdad against the aforementioned grievances. Protesters gathered in Tahrir Square, to which the government responded with internet shutdowns and live ammunition. Protests rapidly became anti-government in general, and in particular anti-Iran. Protesters named Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) general Qasem Soleimani in particular.
Within the first three days, at least 18 civilians had been killed. Some had been shot with live ammunition, but many others were shot with tear gas grenades directly to the head. By using less-lethal rounds in a lethal manner, the Iraqi regime and its Iranian sponsors have been able to skirt international attention that doubtlessly would have been brought to bear had protesters been simply gunned down with live ammunition. The protests halted around 8 October, only to pick up again on 25 October. They have continued ever since.
The videos coming out of Iraq have been at once heartbreaking, heroic, and encouraging. From young men being shot through the head while Fortnite dancing to young women fixing their makeup in the mirror of a Tuk-Tuk (Baghdad’s ubiquitous three-wheeled taxis), with bricks in their hands and masks on their faces, the youth of Iraq have defied all odds and made their stand, center-stage, in a theater with blacked out lights. Despite the utter lack of attention from international authorities and the international community, the people of Iraq have made a statement so powerful it has spread back into Iran.
The protests are not about Shia nationalism, or Sunni nationalism, or Kurdish nationalism. For the first time in recent memory, the demonstrations in Iraq are of Iraqi brotherhood, Iraqi unity, and an Iraqi future. What we are witnessing is a Millennial/Gen-Z pushback against the oppression and lack of opportunity given to them by previous generations, both inside and outside Iraq. In a world so filled with gloom and darkness, the youth of Iraq have made their stand.
