Once-Bustling Baghdad Boulevard Dallies in Disrepair

Baghdad's Rasheed Street once hosted cinemas, artisan shops and smoky cafes playing classic ballads. (AFP)
Baghdad's Rasheed Street once hosted cinemas, artisan shops and smoky cafes playing classic ballads. (AFP)
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Once-Bustling Baghdad Boulevard Dallies in Disrepair

Baghdad's Rasheed Street once hosted cinemas, artisan shops and smoky cafes playing classic ballads. (AFP)
Baghdad's Rasheed Street once hosted cinemas, artisan shops and smoky cafes playing classic ballads. (AFP)

Behind the dilapidated storefronts and collapsing colonnades of Rasheed Street lie the treasures of the Iraqi capital's cultural boom years: old cinemas, artisan shops and smoky cafes playing classic ballads.

But with young Iraqis listening to modern music and spending hours in hipster-style coffee shops, the boulevard that bustled non-stop in the 1970s is at risk of being passed over, said an AFP report Tuesday.

Authorities have tried to revive the street in recent weeks by removing the security checkpoints and concrete blast walls that lined Rasheed for years.

Announcing the move, Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi extolled: "Rasheed Street is the memory of Baghdad."

Despite his government's best efforts though, it may be reduced to only that.

Decades ago, the street's Umm Kulthum Cafe was packed with wistful young men listening to the sultry voice of its namesake, the Egyptian "queen" of Arabic music.

"Coming here was a daily tradition for us. We used to have a lovely time," reminisced Abu Haidar, a retired army serviceman in his seventies.

It was so busy that customers -- writers, men on their way to or from work, and those seeking solace in the music -- struggled to call over harried waiters to order muddy coffee and sweet Iraqi tea.

Now, it only fills up on Saturdays, the traditional day for meeting up with friends in cafes, when older men chain-smoke and sip hot drinks on wooden benches under framed portraits of Iraq's unseated king, Faisal II.

"After all these years, this coffee shop is the only place we can go to remember," said Abu Haidar.

"We hope it can escape extinction."

Some date the street's deterioration back to the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

"I started coming here in 1971, but after 2003, it was ignored," said Tareq Jamila, 70, another cafe customer.

"You wouldn't find the old pioneers, who used to sit in the coffee shop and actually understand Umm Kulthum's songs."

The invasion and sectarian violence that followed saw several bombs planted near Rasheed Street, with the last explosion in 2016 killing more than two dozen people, said AFP.

Other historic areas of the capital similarly fell into disrepair during the years of bloodshed, with Baghdadis often filled with nostalgia for the past.

The floor of the abandoned Mekki Awwad theater, further south in the capital along the winding Tigris River, is blanketed in dust and litter.

It once hosted boisterous nighttime shows, but the rows of numbered seats have not been occupied in years.

Art galleries dotting the neighborhoods between the theater and Rasheed Street have shuttered their doors one after the other.

As one of Baghdad's first cinemas, Al-Zawra had long been a legendary stop along Rasheed -- but it too lies unused now.

Last year, young Iraqi artists organized a walking tour through their capital in an effort to revive some of its historic districts with their own art installations.

Along the tired two-storey buildings of Rasheed Street, one photographer hung new versions of decades-old pictures of Baghdad's heralded past.

But instead of looking up at the photographs, most shoppers were more interested in the tables selling watches, shimmering carp and fake Adidas, reported AFP.

Another Umm Kulthum-themed cafe has opened on Rasheed, choosing one of the singer's nicknames -- Al-Ustura, or The Legend -- as its name.

Although its traditional yellow-brick walls and stained glass windows are "falling into ruin", the original Umm Kulthum is soldiering on, said Said al-Qaissi, 65.

"No one has considered renovating or preserving this place which celebrates art," said Qaissi.

While the cafe's elusive owner rarely makes a public appearance, young waiters dish out tea to older gentlemen in sweaters and berets, lost in awe of Umm Kulthum's voice and their own distant memories.



Iran-Israel War: A Lifeline for Netanyahu?

FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
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Iran-Israel War: A Lifeline for Netanyahu?

FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)

The Iran-Israel war has helped strengthen Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu domestically and overseas, just as his grip on power looked vulnerable.

On the eve of launching strikes on Iran, his government looked to be on the verge of collapse, with a drive to conscript ultra-Orthodox Jews threatening to scupper his fragile coalition.

Nearly two years on from Hamas's unprecedented attack in 2023, Netanyahu was under growing domestic criticism for his handling of the war in Gaza, where dozens of hostages remain unaccounted for, said AFP.

Internationally too, he was coming under pressure including from longstanding allies, who since the war with Iran began have gone back to expressing support.

Just days ago, polls were predicting Netanyahu would lose his majority if new elections were held, but now, his fortunes appear to have reversed, and Israelis are seeing in "Bibi" the man of the moment.

– 'Reshape the Middle East' –

For decades, Netanyahu has warned of the risk of a nuclear attack on Israel by Iran -- a fear shared by most Israelis.

Yonatan Freeman, a geopolitics expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said Netanyahu's argument that the pre-emptive strike on Iran was necessary draws "a lot of public support" and that the prime minister has been "greatly strengthened".

Even the opposition has rallied behind him.

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is my political rival, but his decision to strike Iran at this moment in time is the right one," opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote in a Jerusalem Post op-ed.

A poll published Saturday by a conservative Israeli channel showed that 54 percent of respondents expressed confidence in the prime minister.

The public had had time to prepare for the possibility of an offensive against Iran, with Netanyahu repeatedly warning that Israel was fighting for its survival and had an opportunity to "reshape the Middle East."

During tit-for-tat military exchanges last year, Israel launched air raids on targets in Iran in October that are thought to have severely damaged Iranian air defenses.

Israel's then-defense minister Yoav Gallant said the strikes had shifted "the balance of power" and had "weakened" Iran.

"In fact, for the past 20 months, Israelis have been thinking about this (a war with Iran)," said Denis Charbit, a political scientist at Israel's Open University.

Since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Netanyahu has ordered military action in Gaza, against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as targets in Syria where long-time leader Bashar al-Assad fell in December last year.

"Netanyahu always wants to dominate the agenda, to be the one who reshuffles the deck himself -- not the one who reacts -- and here he is clearly asserting his Churchillian side, which is, incidentally, his model," Charbit said.

"But depending on the outcome and the duration (of the war), everything could change, and Israelis might turn against Bibi and demand answers."

– Silencing critics –

For now, however, people in Israel see the conflict with Iran as a "necessary war," according to Nitzan Perelman, a researcher specialized in Israel at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France.

"Public opinion supports this war, just as it has supported previous ones," she added.

"It's very useful for Netanyahu because it silences criticism, both inside the country and abroad."

In the weeks ahead of the Iran strikes, international criticism of Netanyahu and Israel's military had reached unprecedented levels.

After more than 55,000 deaths in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, and a blockade that has produced famine-like conditions there, Israel has faced growing isolation and the risk of sanctions, while Netanyahu himself is the subject of an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes.

But on Sunday, two days into the war with Iran, the Israeli leader received a phone call from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, while Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has held talks with numerous counterparts.

"There's more consensus in Europe in how they see Iran, which is more equal to how Israel sees Iran," explained Freeman from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday that Israel was doing "the dirty work... for all of us."

The idea that a weakened Iran could lead to regional peace and the emergence of a new Middle East is appealing to the United States and some European countries, according to Freeman.

But for Perelman, "Netanyahu is exploiting the Iranian threat, as he always has."