On the banks of the Tigris River one recent evening, young Iraqi men and women in jeans and sneakers danced with joyous abandon to a local rap star as a vermillion sun set behind them. It's a world away from the terror that followed the U.S. invasion 20 years ago. Iraq 's capital today is throbbing with life and a sense of renewal, its residents enjoying a rare, peaceful interlude in a painful modern history.
BAGHDAD - On the banks of the Tigris River one recent evening, young Iraqi men and women in jeans and sneakers danced with joyous abandon to a local rap star as a vermillion sun set behind them. It's a world away from the terror that followed the U.S. invasion 20 years ago.
For Iraqis, the enduring trauma of the violence that followed is undeniable - an estimated 300,000 Iraqis were killed between 2003 and 2019, according to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, as were more than 8,000 U.S. military, contractors and civilians. The period was marred by unemployment, dislocation, sectarian violence and terrorism, and years without reliable electricity or other public services.
Iraq is rich; peace has returned, he said, and there are opportunities ahead for young people in a country experiencing a population boom. “If they're a little bit patient, I think life will improve drastically in Iraq.” Another day, a different cafe. Noor Alhuda Saad, 26, a Ph.D. candidate at Mustansiriya University who describes herself as a political activist, says her generation has been leading protests decrying corruption, demanding services and seeking more inclusive elections - and won't stop till they've built a better Iraq.
The invasion exists only in memory: bright orange flashes and concussions of American “shock-and-awe” bombs raining down in a thunderous cacophony; tanks rolling along the embankment; Iraqi forces battling across the Tigris or wading into water to avoid U.S. troops; civilian casualties and the desperate, failed effort to save a fellow journalist gravely wounded by a U.S. tank strike in the final days of the battle for Baghdad.
Daily life here looks not so different from any other Arab metropolis. But in the distant deserts of northern and western Iraq, there are occasional clashes with remnants of the Islamic State group. The low-boil conflict involves Kurdish peshmerga fighters, Iraqi army troops and some 2,500 U.S. military advisers still in country.
The sun bakes down on Fallujah, the main city in the Anbar region that was once a hotbed for al-Qaida of Iraq and, later, the Islamic State group. Beneath the iron girders of the city's bridge across the Euphrates, three 18-year-olds are returning home from school for lunch. Still, Dr. Huthifa Alissawi, 40, an imam and mosque leader, says such tensions are trifling compared with what his congregation lived through. Iraq has been engulfed in war for half of his life. When the Islamic State group overran Fallujah, his mosque was seized, and he was ordered to preach in favor of the “caliphate” or be killed. He told them he'd think about it, he said, and then fled to Baghdad. He counted 16 killings of members of his mosque.
Thick skeins of wires hooked up to generators form a canopy over the neighborhood. City power stays on for just two hours at a time; after that, everyone relies on generators. When news spread recently that a musician born and raised in Baghdad whose songs have gotten millions of views on YouTube would headline a rap party hosted at a fancy new restaurant in western Baghdad, his fans shared their excitement via texts and Instagram.
“We had a lot of pain ... it had to stop,” Ahmed Rubaie said. “It is not exactly vanished, but it's not like before.” One of the Shiite militias that took part in that campaign against the Islamic State group is Ketaib Hezbollah, or the Hezbollah Battalions, widely viewed as a proxy for Iran and a cousin to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. It also is part of the political coalition that established al-Sudani's government.
Far from such luxury, 18-year-old Mohammed Zuad Khaman, who toils in his family's kebab cafe in one of Baghdad's poorer neighborhoods, resents the militias' hold on the country because they are an obstacle to his dreams of a sports career. Khaman is a talented footballer, but says he can't play in Baghdad's amateur clubs because he does not have any “in” with the militia-related gangs that control sports teams in the city.
He returned last year, planning to fulfil his contractual obligations to his university and then move to Hungary permanently. But he's found himself impressed by the changes in his homeland and now thinks he will stay.
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