Iraq: History, Government & Society

Iraq is a federal parliamentary republic whose foreign policy is built around one imperative: keep the state intact while balancing the United States, Iran, Turkey, and Arab partners without letting any one actor dominate Baghdad’s room for maneuver Iraqi Constitution via Constitute, U.S. State Department, International Crisis Group. President Abdul Latif Rashid remains head of state and Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani heads the government formed in October 2022, with power resting less in a single ruling party than in a coalition system dominated by the Coordination Framework’s Shia parties and negotiated with Kurdish and Sunni blocs Presidency of the Republic of Iraq, Prime Minister's Office, Reuters, Carnegie Middle East Center. In practice, Iraq’s decision structure is fragmented: the prime minister’s office runs day-to-day statecraft, but major security and foreign-policy files are shaped by bargaining among parliamentary blocs, the Popular Mobilization Forces ecosystem, the Kurdistan Regional Government, and outside patrons, especially Tehran and Washington Chatham House, International Crisis Group.

Iraq’s place in the world is that of a middle-power oil state with outsized strategic relevance and limited strategic autonomy. It is a founding UN member from 1945 and belongs to OPEC, the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and the Non-Aligned Movement, which gives Baghdad a broad multilateral platform even as its real leverage comes from energy exports and geography between the Gulf, Iran, Turkey, and the Levant United Nations, OPEC, League of Arab States, OIC. Baghdad has tried to market itself as a convening state rather than a camp follower, hosting regional dialogue and maintaining relations with both Iran and the United States while deepening ties with Jordan, Gulf monarchies, and Turkey Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Council on Foreign Relations. That balancing line is not rhetorical cover; it is regime-security policy, because any sharp tilt risks either militia backlash, U.S. pressure, or renewed internal fragmentation Washington Institute, International Crisis Group.

Economically, Iraq is heavily concentrated, fiscally exposed, and still richer on paper than in state capacity. The World Bank classifies Iraq as an upper-middle-income economy, and oil still accounts for the overwhelming majority of exports and public revenue, leaving growth, spending, and patronage tied to global crude prices and export continuity World Bank, IMF, OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin. The user-provided nominal GDP figure of about $279.6 billion is consistent with Iraq’s status as one of the larger Arab economies by output, but that scale masks chronic unemployment, weak electricity supply, corruption losses, and dependence on imports, including gas and electricity linked to Iran World Bank, IMF. Iraq’s economic profile is therefore best read as a rentier state under partial reconstruction: substantial oil income, but bottlenecks in power, water, logistics, and public administration keep that income from translating cleanly into diversified growth UNDP Iraq, World Bank.

Three issues define Iraq’s current trajectory. The first is state control over armed force. Baghdad has been trying to tighten command over Iran-aligned armed groups and fold or restrain parts of the militia landscape, because no Iraqi government can fully stabilize policy while parallel chains of command remain active Al-Monitor, Rudaw. The second is energy and fiscal vulnerability: export disruptions, disputes involving the Kurdistan oil file, and dependence on hydrocarbon revenue keep the budget exposed to both market swings and political shocks Reuters, Rudaw. The third is the unfinished bargain among Shia parties, Sunni actors, and Kurdish factions over resource sharing, cabinet power, and federal authority; when that bargain holds, Iraq looks governable, and when it frays, external actors gain leverage fast Carnegie Middle East Center, Chatham House.

The practical assessment is that Iraq is neither collapsing nor consolidating. It has more diplomatic space than Lebanon or Syria, more resource weight than Jordan, and more institutional depth than many outside readers assume, but its sovereignty is still negotiated inside the state rather than exercised cleanly by it International Crisis Group, World Bank. The non-obvious point is that Iraq’s biggest foreign-policy asset is the same thing that makes it look weak: because no single faction can monopolize the system for long, Baghdad repeatedly returns to balancing behavior, which frustrates outside patrons but

Modern Iraq was created by British mandate policy after the First World War, when the former Ottoman provinces of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra were combined into a single state under Faisal I in 1921; Britain then secured a treaty framework and military basing rights before Iraq entered the League of Nations as a formally independent kingdom in 1932 Encyclopaedia Britannica, League of Nations Photo Archive, U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. That founding matters now because Iraqi politics still carries the structural problems built into the state’s origin: a highly centralized capital, contested Arab-Kurdish boundaries, and a persistent argument over whether Iraq is primarily an Arab state, a multiethnic federal state, or a strategic buffer between larger powers Encyclopaedia Britannica, International Crisis Group.

The decisive 20th-century break came with the 1958 revolution, which overthrew the Hashemite monarchy and tied Iraqi legitimacy more directly to republican nationalism, military power, and anti-imperial rhetoric Encyclopaedia Britannica, U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. The Baath Party’s consolidation of power from 1968, and especially Saddam Hussein’s rule after 1979, then hardened a security state that treated internal dissent, Kurdish autonomy, and Shiite political mobilization as regime threats rather than ordinary political disputes Britannica, Human Rights Watch. Two wars still define elite threat perceptions: the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq War, which entrenched fear of Iranian influence while also normalizing militarization, and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait followed by the 1991 Gulf War, which left Iraq internationally isolated, under sanctions, and fractured by uprisings and repression U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, UN Security Council Resolution 661, Britannica.

The 2003 U.S.-led invasion is the central historical reference point for current Iraqi foreign and domestic policy because it destroyed the Baathist state, replaced it with a competitive but weak post-2003 order, and institutionalized sectarian and ethno-political bargaining through the constitution and power-sharing system U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Constitute Project: Iraq 2005 Constitution, [Congressional Research Service](https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF104 عراق). The disbanding of the old army, insurgency, civil conflict after 2006, and the later rise of ISIS in 2014 produced today’s fragmented security architecture: regular armed forces, Kurdish Peshmerga, and the Popular Mobilization Forces all emerged as indispensable but politically contested actors U.S. Institute of Peace, International Crisis Group, NATO. That legacy explains why Baghdad now pursues “state control of arms” as both a sovereignty project and a regime-survival necessity: the state is not rebuilding from a single war, but from layered conflicts that redistributed coercive power outside formal institutions International Crisis Group, U.S. Institute of Peace.

Current leaders usually invoke two historical narratives. The first is sovereignty after occupation and proxy conflict: Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has repeatedly framed Iraq’s goal as preventing its territory from being used in regional confrontation and restoring full state authority, language shaped by the experience of U.S. occupation, ISIS, and Iranian-backed armed networks Prime Minister’s Media Office, Reuters. The second is Iraq as a bridge rather than a battlefield, a line Baghdad has used in hosting regional dialogue, including Saudi-Iran talks, to recast Iraq from object of competition to mediator within it Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Carnegie Middle East Center. Both narratives draw on older history: the memory of foreign domination, sanctions, and war makes sovereignty politically potent, while Iraq’s position between the Arab world, Iran, and Turkey makes balance diplomacy less a slogan than a survival strategy International Crisis Group, Brookings.

Iraq is a federal parliamentary republic on paper and a negotiated power-sharing system in practice. The 2005 Constitution creates a Council of Representatives elected by popular vote, a president chosen by parliament, a prime minister and cabinet drawn from the parliamentary majority, a federal judiciary, and a formally decentralized structure that recognizes the Kurdistan Region as a federal entity Iraq Constitution, 2005. The presidency is a largely ceremonial office, while executive power sits with the Council of Ministers led by the prime minister under Articles 66–86 of the constitution Iraq Constitution, 2005. Current leadership reflects that structure: Abdul Latif Rashid was elected president by parliament on 13 October 2022, and he immediately designated Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to form a government; Sudani’s cabinet won parliamentary confidence on 27 October 2022 Reuters Al Jazeera.

The decisive political arena is parliament, but cabinet formation depends less on ideology than on bargaining among Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish elites. Iraq’s October 2021 parliamentary election produced a fragmented chamber in which Muqtada al-Sadr’s bloc won the largest number of seats, but the failure to form a government led to a year-long deadlock, mass resignations by Sadrist MPs in June 2022, and the eventual rise of the Coordination Framework, a coalition of mostly Iran-aligned Shia parties, as the core bloc behind Sudani UNAMI Reuters Carnegie Middle East Center. Sudani governs through a broad, transactional alliance that includes Coordination Framework parties alongside Sunni and Kurdish partners, which gives his government resilience in parliament but also limits his room to confront entrenched patronage networks or armed actors tied to coalition members Chatham House Carnegie Middle East Center.

Judicial independence is formally guaranteed, but in practice the courts operate under intense political pressure and have become part of Iraq’s power struggle rather than a neutral referee. The Federal Supreme Court has issued decisions with major political consequences, including rulings on the largest parliamentary bloc, the election of the president, and disputes between Baghdad and Erbil over oil and budget authority International IDEA, Iraq Constitution Assessment Reuters. Human Rights Watch and the U.S. State Department have both documented due-process failures, politicized prosecutions, arbitrary detention concerns, and weak accountability for abuses by security forces and non-state armed groups, all of which point to a rule-of-law system that is unevenly applied and vulnerable to elite interference Human Rights Watch, World Report 2024: Iraq U.S. Department of State, 2023 Human Rights Report: Iraq.

Sudani’s government has pursued reform in selective, state-strengthening areas rather than systemic political restructuring. His administration has emphasized anti-corruption enforcement, digitalization of customs and public payments, recovery of stolen state funds, and efforts to bring weapons under state control, while also expanding social spending and public-sector hiring through successive budgets Prime Minister's Office of Iraq World Bank, Iraq Economic Monitor Rudaw. The central governance problem is that Iraq’s institutions are asked to deliver rule-based administration while the political order still runs through party quotas, militia leverage, and oil-financed patronage. That means reform is usually strongest where it improves state revenue or elite coordination, and weakest where it threatens the coalition structure that keeps the government in office Chatham House Carnegie Middle East Center.

Iraq’s economy is still a hydrocarbon state with a very thin productive base outside oil. Crude oil accounted for 99% of Iraq’s exports in 2023 and about 89% of federal government revenue in 2024, according to the World Bank and Iraq’s Ministry of Finance reporting cited by the IMF, which means growth, budget space, and foreign policy room all move with oil prices and export volumes World Bank Iraq Overview, IMF Article IV Consultation—Republic of Iraq. The non-oil economy is dominated by services, public administration, trade, transport, and construction rather than export manufacturing; the IMF describes the state as the main engine of demand through public hiring and spending, while industrial diversification remains weak IMF Article IV Consultation—Republic of Iraq. That structure gives Baghdad cash when oil is high, but it also makes the country import-dependent for consumer goods, machinery, and much of its industrial input base World Bank Iraq Overview.

Trade patterns reflect both geography and political constraint. China was Iraq’s largest goods export market in 2023, taking roughly 39% of Iraqi exports, almost entirely crude, while India took about 24% and South Korea about 9%; on the import side, Turkey supplied about 27% of Iraq’s imports, followed by China at about 13% and the United Arab Emirates at about 12%, based on Observatory of Economic Complexity trade data for 2023 OEC Iraq Profile. Iraq also remains structurally tied to Iran for gas and electricity imports, a dependency the U.S. Energy Information Administration says has repeatedly exposed Iraq to supply disruptions and sanctions-waiver politics with Washington EIA Country Analysis Brief: Iraq. The result is an external economic map that pushes Iraqi diplomacy in several directions at once: energy exports tie it to Asian buyers, consumer and overland trade tie it to Turkey and the Gulf, and power-sector dependence complicates any effort to distance itself quickly from Iran OEC Iraq Profile, EIA Country Analysis Brief: Iraq.

Currency management is heavily political because Iraq’s financial system is dollarized in practice even though the dinar is the national currency. The Central Bank of Iraq adjusted the official exchange rate in February 2023 to IQD 1,300 per U.S. dollar after the dinar had been devalued to 1,460 in late 2020, and the bank has since tried to stabilize the market while tightening compliance on dollar transfers under U.S. anti-money-laundering scrutiny Central Bank of Iraq, Reuters, Iraq sets official exchange rate at 1,300 dinars per dollar. Those controls reduced some illicit demand but also created periodic gaps between the official and parallel-market rates, which matters because exchange-rate volatility quickly turns into food-price and public-salary pressure in an import-heavy economy IMF Article IV Consultation—Republic of Iraq, Reuters, Iraqi dinar weakens on parallel market amid U.S. dollar curbs. For policymakers, that means monetary sovereignty is narrower than it looks: the key variable is access to dollar liquidity and external payment channels, not just domestic interest-rate decisions IMF Article IV Consultation—Republic of Iraq.

Fiscal policy is expansive when oil money is available and hard to retrench when prices fall. Iraq’s federal budget law for 2023–2025 authorized very large spending increases, including public-sector wages and transfers, and the IMF warned in 2024 that the non-oil primary fiscal deficit had widened sharply and was unsustainable at lower oil prices Official Gazette / Federal Budget Law 2023–2025, IMF Article IV Consultation—Republic of Iraq. The core vulnerability is simple: Iraq has fiscal buffers when oil prices are high, but those buffers coexist with one of the world’s strongest forms of commodity dependence, so any hit to Brent prices, OPEC+ production ceilings, or export infrastructure rapidly becomes a budget problem World Bank Iraq Overview, IMF Article IV Consultation—Republic of Iraq. Its main economic strength is the mirror image of that weakness: Iraq is OPEC’s second-largest crude producer after Saudi Arabia, giving it durable revenue capacity and geopolitical weight, but that same oil centrality makes Baghdad cautious on sanctions, export disruptions, and any regional escalation that could threaten production, pipelines, ports, or electricity supply OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin 2024, EIA Country Analysis Brief: Iraq [blocked]

Iraq’s security posture is defensive in doctrine but fragmented in execution: the state fields large formal forces, yet real coercive power is split among the Iraqi Security Forces, the Counter Terrorism Service, federal police, Peshmerga forces in the Kurdistan Region, and Popular Mobilization Forces with uneven loyalty to Baghdad International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2024 U.S. Department of State, 2023 Country Reports on Terrorism: Iraq. Iraq’s armed forces numbered roughly 245,000 active personnel in 2024, with additional paramilitary formations outside the regular chain of command, while military expenditure was about 1.4% of GDP in 2023, down from the peak anti-ISIS years IISS, The Military Balance 2024 SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, as commander-in-chief under Iraq’s constitution, formally holds the security file, but in practice policy is shaped through bargaining among the prime minister’s office, the Interior and Defense Ministries, the Counter Terrorism Service, and armed factions tied to the Popular Mobilization Commission Constitution of Iraq Carnegie Middle East Center, “The Political Economy of Iraq’s Security Sector”.

Iraq is not bound by a formal collective-defense alliance like NATO, but its security partnerships are central to force readiness. The United States and coalition partners continue to support Iraq through the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, with NATO Mission Iraq providing non-combat training and institutional assistance rather than treaty-backed defense guarantees NATO Mission Iraq Combined Joint Task Force–Operation Inherent Resolve. At the same time, Baghdad maintains deep security interdependence with Iran-linked militias that were institutionalized after the war against ISIS, creating a structural contradiction: Iraq relies on Western training, intelligence, and aviation support while also accommodating armed actors aligned with Tehran International Crisis Group, “Iraq’s Tishreen Uprising: From Barricades to Ballot Box” Washington Institute, “The Future of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces”. That contradiction explains Iraq’s consistent preference for de-escalation between the United States and Iran on its territory and its repeated insistence that foreign forces operate only with Baghdad’s consent Iraqi Prime Minister’s Media Office U.S. Department of State.

The main active security threat is no longer territorial collapse by ISIS but a persistent insurgency in rural belts and disputed territories, especially in Diyala, Kirkuk, Salah al-Din, Ninewa, and parts of Anbar, where gaps between federal and Kurdish forces create exploitable seams U.S. Department of State, 2023 Country Reports on Terrorism: Iraq UN Assistance Mission for Iraq reporting. Iraq also faces cross-border military pressure from Turkey against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in northern Iraq and recurring risks from militia attacks linked to the regional Iran-US confrontation Reuters, “Turkey steps up operations in northern Iraq” Council on Foreign Relations, Global Conflict Tracker: Instability in Iraq. Baghdad’s top perceived threats therefore sit at three tiers: survival-level concern over jihadist resurgence and loss of territorial control, regime-security concern over autonomous militia power and state erosion, and economic-security concern over attacks that could disrupt oil infrastructure and export routes, which fund the state World Bank, Iraq Overview IMF, Iraq 2024 Article IV Consultation.

Iraq has no nuclear weapons program and is a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, with a comprehensive safeguards agreement and an IAEA additional protocol in force IAEA, Iraq country factsheet UN Treaty Collection, NPT status. Its arms-control posture is broadly pro-nonproliferation and pro-regional restraint: Iraq is a state party to the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention and has regularly supported the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in UN forums OPCW, Iraq UN Office for Disarmament Affairs. The sharper issue is conventional arms control at home. Baghdad’s current push to place all weapons under state authority reflects a long-running objective to fold or neutralize militia arsenals rather than any settled success in doing so; Iraq’s peace position is less about interstate treaties than about reestablishing a monopoly on force inside its own borders Rudaw, “Iraq moves to restrict arms to state control as Iran-aligned group sets disarmament conditions” Al-Monitor, “Can Iraq absorb Iran-backed militias without deepening Tehran’s influence?”.

Iraq is a young, fast-urbanizing society whose politics are shaped by the gap between a rapidly growing population and a state that still struggles to deliver services evenly after decades of war, sanctions, and institutional fragmentation. About 46.1 million people lived in Iraq in 2024, and roughly 70 percent were urban residents, while the population ages 0–14 made up about 35 percent of the total, giving Iraq one of the youngest age structures in West Asia World Bank Data World Bank Data UNICEF Iraq. That demographic profile matters politically: each year large cohorts enter schools and labor markets that cannot absorb them easily, which helps explain why jobs, electricity, housing, and corruption repeatedly mobilize protest across sectarian lines World Bank Iraq Overview International Crisis Group.

Iraq’s social fabric is diverse but politically sensitive because identity is both lived and institutionalized. The Constitution recognizes Iraq as a country of multiple nationalities, religions, and sects, and names Arabic and Kurdish as official languages, with Turkmen and Syriac recognized as official in administrative units where speakers constitute a density of population; the Constitution also protects the educational rights of Iraqis to teach children in their mother tongue, including Turkmen, Syriac, and Armenian Constitute Project: Iraq 2005 Constitution Iraqi Parliament Constitution text. Arabs form the majority of the population, while Kurds are the largest minority, concentrated mainly in the Kurdistan Region, and Turkmen, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Yazidis, Shabak, Armenians, and others remain part of Iraq’s social mosaic despite heavy displacement and emigration since 2003 and especially after the Islamic State offensive in 2014 Minority Rights Group: Iraq UNHCR Iraq. Religiously, Iraq is overwhelmingly Muslim, with a Shi’a majority and a large Sunni Arab and Sunni Kurdish population, while Christian, Yazidi, Sabean-Mandaean, Kaka’i, and other minority communities are far smaller than before 2014 because of violence, displacement, and outward migration US Department of State International Religious Freedom Report: Iraq International Organization for Migration Iraq.

Education and health show Iraq’s mixed post-conflict recovery. Adult literacy has improved over the long term but remains uneven by gender and location, and conflict damage, overcrowded classrooms, and climate-related stress continue to affect school attendance and learning outcomes UNESCO Iraq UNICEF Iraq Education. In health, life expectancy has recovered from earlier conflict-era lows and stood around 71 years in recent World Bank data, but outcomes still vary sharply by province and by access to clean water, primary care, and maternal services World Bank Data World Health Organization Iraq. Iraq’s health system expanded immunization and basic care after the territorial defeat of ISIS, yet the WHO and World Bank both note persistent weaknesses in infrastructure, workforce distribution, and out-of-pocket burdens, especially in fragile and displacement-affected areas World Health Organization Iraq World Bank Iraq Overview.

The social tensions that matter most in Iraqi politics are no longer reducible to a simple Sunni-Shi’a divide, even though sectarian power-sharing still structures the state. Competition now overlaps sect, ethnicity, region, class, and patronage: Baghdad versus Erbil over oil, budget transfers, and disputed territories; protest movements against party quotas and corruption in Shi’a-majority provinces; minority demands for security and restitution in Ninewa and Sinjar; and disputes over whether armed factions should remain parallel centers of power International Crisis Group United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq International Organization for Migration Iraq. At the same time, Iraq has real cross-sectarian solidarities built around nationalism, public-sector dependence, family and tribal networks, and a common demand for state services and sovereignty free from external domination Carnegie Middle East Center Chatham House: Iraq Initiative. That is why domestic politics often turns less on theology than on who controls jobs, oil revenues, weapons, and local authority inside a society that is young, urban, and tired of instability World Bank Iraq Overview International Crisis Group.

Iraq treats climate stress as a security and service-delivery problem more than a normative environmental agenda. The country is highly exposed to extreme heat, drought, dust storms, and water scarcity; the World Bank says Iraq is among the most vulnerable countries in the Middle East to climate change because rising temperatures, declining rainfall, and upstream water pressures are hitting agriculture, livelihoods, and urban services at once World Bank. The UN Environment Programme has linked Iraq’s recurrent dust and sand storms, land degradation, and shrinking marsh ecosystems to both climate change and weak resource management, with the Mesopotamian Marshes under sustained ecological pressure despite their protected status UNEP. Water is the sharpest external environmental dispute: Iraq’s government has repeatedly argued that reduced flows in the Tigris and Euphrates are being worsened by dams and water management in Türkiye and Iran, making transboundary water diplomacy a core foreign-policy issue rather than a technical one International Crisis Group Reuters.

Iraq’s energy mix explains much of its climate posture. Electricity generation remains dominated by oil and gas, and Iraq still relies heavily on burning crude oil products and associated gas while also importing gas and electricity from Iran to stabilize supply International Energy Agency. At the same time, Iraq is one of the world’s largest gas flarers; the World Bank’s Global Gas Flaring Tracker has consistently placed Iraq near the top tier globally, making methane and CO2 emissions from the oil sector a central environmental liability World Bank Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership. Baghdad’s public line is gradual diversification, not rapid decarbonization. The government has announced utility-scale solar plans and signed projects intended to expand renewable generation, but implementation has lagged behind demand growth, grid weakness, and the political priority of keeping hydrocarbon revenues flowing International Energy Agency Government of Iraq, Ministry of Oil. In practice, Iraq’s climate diplomacy is shaped by an economic interest pyramid in which regime stability and oil rent still outrank emissions reduction.

On Paris commitments, Iraq is a party to the Paris Agreement and submitted an updated nationally determined contribution that conditions most of its mitigation on international support. Iraq’s NDC commits to an economy-wide greenhouse-gas reduction target of 1–2% unconditionally and up to 15% conditionally by 2035 compared with a business-as-usual pathway, with measures focused on flaring reduction, cleaner power, renewables, transport, and waste management UNFCCC NDC Registry. That structure matters: Baghdad is signaling participation in the climate regime, but it is also stating clearly that deeper cuts depend on finance, technology transfer, and state capacity it does not yet possess UNFCCC NDC Registry. Iraq has also framed adaptation as the more urgent track, emphasizing water management, resilient agriculture, anti-desertification measures, and protection of vulnerable communities from heat and drought FAO Iraq UNDP Iraq.

The legal and dispute picture is fragmented. Iraq has framework environmental regulation through its Law on the Protection and Improvement of Environment No. 27 of 2009, administered through national environmental institutions now linked to the Ministry of Environment portfolio within the federal cabinet structure; the law covers pollution control, environmental impact assessment, and protection of biodiversity and natural resources FAOLEX Government of Iraq. Iraq also has water and marshland protection measures on paper, but enforcement is uneven and often overridden by conflict recovery, patronage, and infrastructure shortfalls UNEP. Active disputes center on transboundary water allocation with Türkiye and Iran, salt intrusion and fisheries damage in the Shatt al-Arab and Basra area, marsh degradation, and land loss from desertification rather than classic interstate emissions politics International Crisis Group UNESCO UNEP. Iraq’s likely posture in multilateral forums is therefore predictable: it will support climate finance, adaptation funding, and technology access, defend continued hydrocarbon development, and push hardest on water sovereignty and upstream river management.

Iraq’s most important foreign-policy development in the last 90 days has been Baghdad’s attempt to pull armed force back under state command without triggering a direct confrontation with Iran-backed factions. On 7 June, Rudaw reported that the Iraqi government was moving to restrict weapons to the state and that an Iran-aligned armed group had tied any disarmament to political and security conditions, a sign that Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is trying to rebalance regime security and sovereignty against the entrenched power of the Popular Mobilization Forces’ factional wings rather than dismantle them outright Rudaw. On 6 June, reporting indicated that some Iran-backed militias had begun handing over weapons or positions, but the process appeared partial and politically managed, not a clean demobilization, which matters because Iraq’s external posture toward the US, Iran, and regional Arab states depends heavily on whether Baghdad can prove that security decisions run through the prime minister and formal institutions rather than militia channels Rudaw Al-Monitor. The key analytical point is that this is less a disarmament drive than a state-incorporation project: Baghdad wants coercive control, but many armed actors want legal cover, budget access, and continued influence inside the state Al-Monitor.

The second major development has been elite bargaining over cabinet formation and coalition management under visible US pressure against armed factions. On 5 June, Rudaw reported that Kurdish and Sunni parties had reached a cabinet deal while, according to an Iraqi official cited in the report, the United States was blocking armed factions from expanding their hold, showing that Iraq’s domestic power-sharing remains inseparable from its external balancing between Washington and Tehran Rudaw. That matters because Iraq’s foreign policy is not made by the foreign ministry alone; it is produced through bargains among the prime minister’s office, Coordination Framework parties, Kurdish leaders, Sunni blocs, and militia-linked actors, with outside pressure from both the US and Iran shaping who gets portfolios and leverage Al-Monitor. In practice, the cabinet deal suggests Sudani is still governing through negotiated inclusion rather than exclusion, but the terms of inclusion are tightening for armed groups as Baghdad tests whether it can centralize authority without collapsing the coalition that keeps the government in office Rudaw.

The third development is the renewed pressure on Iraq’s oil economy from disruptions involving the Kurdistan export route. On 9 June, Rudaw reported that Iraqi oil exports had plunged and raised the question of whether Iraq and the Kurdistan Region could return to pre-war export levels, underscoring that Baghdad’s economic stability and fiscal room still depend on restoring reliable northern flows and managing disputes with Erbil and Turkey Rudaw. Because oil revenue funds the Iraqi state, including salaries and security structures, any prolonged export shortfall quickly becomes a foreign-policy constraint by reducing Baghdad’s ability to buy internal stability and negotiate from strength with Ankara, international energy firms, and Kurdish authorities Rudaw. The one development to watch next quarter is whether Sudani converts the current militia handover and arms-control push into a formal, enforceable chain of command under state institutions; if that effort stalls or is diluted into symbolic compliance, Iraq’s room to balance between Iran, the United States, and its Arab partners will narrow fast Rudaw Al-Monitor.