Iraq's Enjoys Respite from Turmoil but Risks Remain

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, attends the Arab League Summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, May 19, 2023. Iraqi Prime Minister Media Office/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, attends the Arab League Summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, May 19, 2023. Iraqi Prime Minister Media Office/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
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Iraq's Enjoys Respite from Turmoil but Risks Remain

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, attends the Arab League Summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, May 19, 2023. Iraqi Prime Minister Media Office/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, attends the Arab League Summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, May 19, 2023. Iraqi Prime Minister Media Office/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

Helped by buoyant oil prices and a period of political calm at home and in the region, Iraq appears more stable than any time since the US-led invasion, although the government's bid to cement gains with a budget splurge may prove a shaky foundation.

In office since October, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has launched a program to rebuild infrastructure and attract foreign investors, but analysts say the plans are at risk from an uncertain oil price outlook and face the challenge of maintaining delicate diplomacy in a volatile region, Reuters said.

"We are positive in the short-term outlook but medium to longer-term there are major challenges," said one Western diplomat.

Brought to power by Shiite Muslim groups backed by neighboring Iran, Sudani passed his first major test this week by getting the state budget through parliament.

He has also performed a tricky diplomatic balancing act in handling relations with archrivals Iran and the United States.

Sudani won Washington's praise by implementing demands to stop dollars being smuggled to Iran in violation of US sanctions, yet has kept Tehran's allies in Iraq happy with a state hiring spree and plans for major projects to create new work opportunities for militiamen, many from Iran-backed groups, now that their fight against ISIS has been won.

A lawmaker from Iraq's majority Muslim Shiite community, who backs Sudani, said the prime minister was working "as a successful diplomat who can keep good relations with the West and Americans and at the same time make sure to send positive messages to Tehran."

The lawmaker, who declined to be named so he could speak freely about the prime minister, said Sudani's Iran-aligned backers saw him as a man who would act as a manager to improve basic services while shielding their interests.

UNRESOLVED PROBLEMS

Government foreign affairs adviser Farhad Alaaldin said Sudani served all Iraqis not just those allied to Iran.

"It's been a long while since we enjoyed this sort of political stability where the crises we face are dealt with in meeting rooms and under the roof of parliament and not outside," Alaaldin said.

It is a dramatic shift from last year, when rivalry between Shiite groups blocked the formation of a government, leading to violence and stoking fears of civil war in a nation that has suffered from conflict and chaos since the 2003 invasion.

Analysts say many of Iraq's problems remain unresolved, ranging from its heavy dependence on oil revenues and the volatile global energy market to graft and sectarianism.

"The system of corruption and political patronage is entrenched and has stifled any reform attempts for the past 20 years," said Renaud Mansour, director of the Iraq Initiative at London's Chatham House think tank, adding that a state hiring spree was not a "sustainable fix".

He said Iraq could easily be destabilized by problems beyond its borders, calling the country a "playground for regional and global problems".

Iraq remains vulnerable to geopolitical shocks, including in the Kurdish-controlled north, where rival parties are feuding. Türkiye and Iran have mounted military operations against Kurdish armed groups there, saying they threaten their national security.

FINANCIAL LARGESSE

Challenges abound elsewhere too. Last year's fears about civil war only abated when populist Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr stepped back from politics and his huge number of followers moved off the streets. But he has stepped back before and analysts say could fire up the street again if he sought a return.

Nevertheless, Sudani has had successes. His budget was passed after tough negotiations to win the backing of Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni Arab factions.

But the budget, Iraq's biggest, forecasts spending of 198.9 trillion dinars ($153 billion) with plans to add more than 500,000 workers to an already bloated bureaucracy, flying in the face of recommendations from the International Monetary Fund.

Most families rely on income from relatives with state jobs - difficult to cut if oil prices fall and state revenues slide.

Seeking to strengthen the economy, Sudani has courted foreign investment, including reviving a $27 billion deal with France's TotalEnergies and QatarEnergies to develop oil and gas output.

His diplomatic initiatives, meanwhile, have included visits to Germany, France and Saudi Arabia. But notably he has secured support from the United States, which has 2,500 soldiers in Iraq to advise and assist in fighting remnants of ISIS.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf said the government's agenda of economic reform and the drive against corruption was "exactly what the doctor ordered".

"We will support this government working through those steps," she said in Baghdad in May, calling Iraq a place for cooperation rather than a "battleground".



Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
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Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)

The al-Manasra family rarely get enough water for both drinking and washing after their daily trudge to a Gaza distribution point like the one where eight people were killed on Sunday in a strike that Israel's military said had missed its target.

Living in a tent camp by the ruins of a smashed concrete building in Gaza City, the family say their children are already suffering from diarrhea and skin maladies and from the lack of clean water, and they fear worse to come.

"There's no water, our children have been infected with scabies, there are no hospitals to go to and no medications," said Akram Manasra, 51.

He had set off on Monday for a local water tap with three of his daughters, each of them carrying two heavy plastic containers in Gaza's blazing summer heat, but they only managed to fill two - barely enough for the family of 10.

Gaza's lack of clean water after 21 months of war and four months of Israeli blockade is already having "devastating impacts on public health" the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said in a report this month.

For people queuing at a water distribution point on Sunday it was fatal. A missile that Israel said had targeted fighters but malfunctioned hit a queue of people waiting to collect water at the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Israel's blockade of fuel along with the difficulty in accessing wells and desalination plants in zones controlled by the Israeli military is severely constraining water, sanitation and hygiene services according to OCHA.

Fuel shortages have also hit waste and sewage services, risking more contamination of the tiny, crowded territory's dwindling water supply, and diseases causing diarrhea and jaundice are spreading among people crammed into shelters and weakened by hunger.

"If electricity was allowed to desalination plants the problem of a lethal lack of water, which is what's becoming the situation now in Gaza, would be changed within 24 hours," said James Elder, the spokesperson for the UN's children's agency UNICEF.

"What possible reason can there be for denying of a legitimate amount of water that a family needs?" he added.

COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, an Israeli military official said that Israel was allowing sufficient fuel into Gaza but that its distribution around the enclave was not under Israel's purview.

THIRSTY AND DIRTY

For the Manasra family, like others in Gaza, the daily toil of finding water is exhausting and often fruitless.

Inside their tent the family tries to maintain hygiene by sweeping. But there is no water for proper cleaning and sometimes they are unable to wash dishes from their meager meals for several days at a time.

Manasra sat in the tent and showed how one of his young daughters had angry red marks across her back from what he said a doctor had told them was a skin infection caused by the lack of clean water.

They maintain a strict regimen of water use by priority.

After pouring their two containers of water from the distribution point into a broken plastic water butt by their tent, they use it to clean themselves from the tap, using their hands to spoon it over their heads and bodies.

Water that runs off into the basin underneath is then used for dishes and after that - now grey and dirty - for clothes.

"How is this going to be enough for 10 people? For the showering, washing, dish washing, and the washing of the covers. It's been three months; we haven't washed the covers, and the weather is hot," Manasra said.

His wife, Umm Khaled, sat washing clothes in a tiny puddle of water at the bottom of a bucket - all that was left after the more urgent requirements of drinking and cooking.

"My daughter was very sick from the heat rash and the scabies. I went to several doctors for her and they prescribed many medications. Two of my children yesterday, one had diarrhea and vomiting and the other had fever and infections from the dirty water," she said.