Britain and the US… And the Round of Violence in Iraq

Saraya al-Salam fighters taking part in the recent skirmishes in Baghdad. (AFP)
Saraya al-Salam fighters taking part in the recent skirmishes in Baghdad. (AFP)
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Britain and the US… And the Round of Violence in Iraq

Saraya al-Salam fighters taking part in the recent skirmishes in Baghdad. (AFP)
Saraya al-Salam fighters taking part in the recent skirmishes in Baghdad. (AFP)

In contrast to its establishment by the British in the early twentieth century, the second effort to establish an Iraqi state, made this century by the US, was chaotic and not based on a vision for how to build it.

There is an immense difference in scale between the two foundations. Iraq had not been a state but three provinces (Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra) of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, while it was a single country that had been around for 80 years and had the fifth or sixth largest army in the world when Saddam was toppled by the US in 2003.

While Mrs. Gertrude Bell, the Oriental Secretary to the British High Commissioner, was heavily involved in the British effort to establish the new state of Iraq, and she brought in an Arab king from the Hejaz to rule the country, the Americans appointed Paul Bremer as the first top civilian administrator in Iraq, and he went on to destroy the Iraq capacities of state in vain.

The English version of the Iraqi state had a single national identity, as demonstrated by the fact that senior Shiite clerics engaged with the founding of the country from the lens of their national (Arab) identity, not their (Muslim) religious or (Shiite) confessional identity.

When a delegation visited Sharif Hussein bin Ali, they sought to persuade him to allow one of his sons to become king of Iraq.

Everything had changed 80 years later. While in its middle age, what were dubbed grievances of the oppressed began to emerge within the modern Iraqi state. These were especially prevalent during Saddam Hussein’s long rule (1968 - 2003), when it became apparent that some Iraqis were being discriminated against on an ethnic (the persecution of the Kurds, including the Halabja massacre) and confessional (the persecution of the Shiites, which would eventually go as far as prohibiting their Ashura rituals) basis.

All of this history was very much there as the US tanks rolled in with the support and encouragement of Iraq’s new rulers, who had been opposed to Saddam.

Bremer touches on these issues and others in his book “My Year in Iraq”, and many of those he named were part of the Iraqi Governing Council and are so-called founding fathers of the current regime.

Moqtada al-Sadr was still a young man at the tender age of 29 at the time. He inherited the religious leadership position of his father, Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr (one of the most influential Shiite clerics in the country) after the latter was assassinated by Saddam in 1999.

The young Sadr, who was seen as a local insider in the sense that he did not arrive in the country on the backs of American tanks like the other opposition forces, quickly decided to launch a resistance movement targeting the Americans with the Sunni resistance.

While these battles eventually led to a sectarian war after the bombing of the Samarra shrine (2006 - 2008), Sadr went on to become among the most influential leaders in Iraq today.

Because the US made the mistake of establishing a political regime built on spoil-sharing among ethnic and confessional groups in Iraq, the national identity of the country was erased, with sub-identities (ethnic, religious, regional, sectarian) replacing it.

The prominence of these identities made it impossible to form a government that could overcome the dominance of spoil-sharing, which shapes all aspects of state building and strengthens religious, partisan, militia, and tribal leaders at the expense of political officials.

In light of this precarious state of affairs, it seems that any shake-up would have a domino effect and lead to successive crises. This happened several times during the October revolution in 2019, leaving hundreds dead and tens of thousands injured, and more recently during the wave of protests launched by the Sadrists.

While a so-called third party was held responsible for what happened during the October protests, the violence that followed Sadr’s announcement that he would retire from political life could not be blamed on a third party.

It was patently obvious that only two sides were involved. On the one hand, is the Sadrist Movement led by Moqtada al-Sadr, and on the other is Coordination Framework, an alliance led by the country’s other powerful Shiite leaders: Nouri al-Maliki, Hadi al-Ameri, Qais Khazali, Ammar al-Hakim, Haider al-Abadi and Falih al-Fayyad.

In this instance, Sadr moved quickly and decisively after he felt and acknowledged that he had been as responsible for the bloodshed as the others and ordered his followers to withdraw. His followers did indeed withdraw within the deadline of one hour that he had set.

Does that mean the state will function normally again? All indications point to what happened being a round of violence that could be a prelude to another. The reason now and always will be the faulty foundation of Iraq, one that sharply differs from that laid by Mrs. Bell.



To Get Their Own Cash, People in Gaza Must Pay Middlemen a 40% Cut

A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
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To Get Their Own Cash, People in Gaza Must Pay Middlemen a 40% Cut

A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)

Cash is the lifeblood of the Gaza Strip’s shattered economy, and like all other necessities in this war-torn territory — food, fuel, medicine — it is in extremely short supply.

With nearly every bank branch and ATM inoperable, people have become reliant on an unrestrained network of powerful cash brokers to get money for daily expenses and commissions on those transactions have soared to about 40%.

"The people are crying blood because of this," said Ayman al-Dahdouh, a school director living in Gaza City. "It’s suffocating us, starving us."

At a time of surging inflation, high unemployment and dwindling savings, the scarcity of cash has magnified the financial squeeze on families — some of whom have begun to sell their possessions to buy essential goods.

The cash that is available has even lost some of its luster. Palestinians use the Israeli currency, the shekel, for most transactions. Yet with Israel no longer resupplying the territory with newly printed bank notes, merchants are increasingly reluctant to accept frayed bills.

Gaza’s punishing cash crunch has several root causes, experts say.

To curtail Hamas’ ability to purchase weapons and pay its fighters, Israel stopped allowing cash to enter Gaza at the start of the war. Around the same time, many wealthy families in Gaza withdrew their money from banks and then fled the territory. And rising fears about Gaza’s financial system prompted foreign businesses selling goods into the territory to demand cash payments.

As Gaza’s money supply dwindled and civilians’ desperation mounted, cash brokers' commissions — around 5% at the start of the war — skyrocketed.

Someone needing cash transfers money electronically to a broker and moments later is handed a fraction of that amount in bills. Many brokers openly advertise their services, while others are more secretive. Some grocers and retailers have also begun exchanging cash for their customers.

"If I need $60, I need to transfer $100," said Mohammed Basheer al-Farra, who lives in southern Gaza after being displaced from Khan Younis. "This is the only way we can buy essentials, like flour and sugar. We lose nearly half of our money just to be able to spend it."

In 2024, inflation in Gaza surged by 230%, according to the World Bank. It dropped slightly during the ceasefire that began in January, only to shoot up again after Israel backed out of the truce in March.

Cash touches every aspect of life in Gaza

About 80% of people in Gaza were unemployed at the end of 2024, according to the World Bank, and the figure is likely higher now. Those with jobs are mostly paid by direct deposits into their bank accounts.

But "when you want to buy vegetables, food, water, medication -- if you want to take transportation, or you need a blanket, or anything — you must use cash," al-Dahdouh said.

Shahid Ajjour’s family has been living off of savings for two years after the pharmacy and another business they owned were ruined by the war.

"We had to sell everything just to get cash," said Ajjour, who sold her gold to buy flour and canned beans. The family of eight spends the equivalent of $12 every two days on flour; before the war, that cost less than $4.

Sugar is very expensive, costing the equivalent of $80-$100 per kilogram (2.2 pounds), multiple people said; before the war, that cost less than $2.

Gasoline is about $25 a liter, or roughly $95 a gallon, when paying the lower, cash price.

Bills are worn and unusable

The bills in Gaza are tattered after 21 months of war.

Money is so fragile, it feels as if it is going to melt in your hands, said Mohammed al-Awini, who lives in a tent camp in southern Gaza.

Small business owners said they were under pressure to ask customers for undamaged cash because their suppliers demand pristine bills from them.

Thaeir Suhwayl, a flour merchant in Deir al-Balah, said his suppliers recently demanded he pay them only with brand new 200-shekel ($60) bank notes, which he said are rare. Most civilians pay him with 20-shekel ($6) notes that are often in poor condition.

On a recent visit to the market, Ajjour transferred the shekel equivalent of around $100 to a cash broker and received around $50 in return. But when she tried to buy some household supplies from a merchant, she was turned away because the bills weren’t in good condition.

"So the worth of your $50 is zero in the end," she said.

This problem has given rise to a new business in Gaza: money repair. It costs between 3 and 10 shekels ($1-$3) to mend old bank notes. But even cash repaired with tape or other means is sometimes rejected.

People are at the mercy of cash brokers

After most of the banks closed in the early days of the war, those with large reserves of cash suddenly had immense power.

"People are at their mercy," said Mahmoud Aqel, who has been displaced from his home in southern Gaza. "No one can stop them."

The war makes it impossible to regulate market prices and exchange rates, said Dalia Alazzeh, an expert in finance and accounting at the University of the West of Scotland. "Nobody can physically monitor what’s happening," Alazzeh said.

A year ago, the Palestine Monetary Authority, the equivalent of a central bank for Gaza and the West Bank, sought to ease the crisis by introducing a digital payment system known as Iburaq. It attracted half a million users, or a quarter of the population, according to the World Bank, but was ultimately undermined by merchants insisting on cash.

Israel sought to ramp up financial pressure on Hamas earlier this year by tightening the distribution of humanitarian aid, which it said was routinely siphoned off by militants and then resold.

Experts said it is unclear if the cash brokers’ activities benefit Hamas, as some Israeli analysts claim.

The war has made it more difficult to determine who is behind all sorts of economic activity in the territory, said Omar Shabaan, director of Palthink for Strategic Studies, a Gaza-based think tank.

"It's a dark place now. You don't know who is bringing cigarettes into Gaza," he said, giving just one example. "It's like a mafia."

These same deep-pocketed traders are likely the ones running cash brokerages, and selling basic foodstuffs, he said. "They benefit by imposing these commissions," he said.

Once families run out of cash, they are forced to turn to humanitarian aid.

Al-Farra said that is what prompted him to begin seeking food at an aid distribution center, where it is common for Palestinians to jostle over one other for sacks of flour and boxes of pasta.

"This is the only way I can feed my family," he said.