The fact that the Iraqi people have not heard about any suicidal attack or seen a car bombing on the streets in the last few years is a victory for humanity, not just the Iraqi people. This achievement was obtained following the resolute rejection of two Pan-isms. First, the idea of pan-Arabism failed in Iraq during the 1950s-1980s, and then pan-Shiism, or the Shia Crescent, emerged in the 2000s-2010s. In this article, I explain the reasons for these two rejections, then, while assessing the new era of Iraq’s politics, conclude that Shia and Sunni Arab Iraqis have a pattern to follow within Iraq.
Iraq rejects pan-Arabism
At the height of Pan-Arabism, in the late 1950s, when Syria and Egypt were ready to give up their territorial integrity and form a United Arab Republic (1958-1961), the leaders of the Iraqi revolution did not dare to join this alliance, despite their desire, primarily because of the Shia population in Iraq. Nasser in Egypt expected Iraq to be the third country of this new republic; however, Libya was more enthusiastic, and Iraq never joined this alliance. Iraqi leaders were aware that the Shias of Iraq not only had no interest in joining a single Arab state but were also afraid of becoming a minority religious group within a Sunni-led Arab world. In Iraq, Shia people at that time preferred to emphasise their religious orientation rather than their ethnic/linguistic ties.
Iraq rejects pan-Shiism
In the mid-2000s onwards, the supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, made the same mistake as Nasser, but this time from a religious perspective. He imagined that the majority of the Shia people of Iraq would renounce their Arab/Iraqi identity and join his Shiite Crescent, especially under the political atmosphere of American invasion. The opposite occurred this time. Shias in Iraq gradually began to focus on the ethnic aspect of their identity. They knew that in the Shia world led by Iran, they would always be an ethnic minority called Arabs and, at best, would be considered third-rate Shias after the Persians and Turks of Iran and the region. But in Iraq and as Iraqis, they were an unrivalled majority. In fact, being Arab and being Shia would have made them a permanent minority in the Arab and Shia worlds, but being Iraqi would have given them the power to be a majority and have an independent identity; Iraqi Arabs. The current world is a world of nation-states. A world where individuals and groups had to either belong to a ruling majority or have the rights of a minority within a democratic government. Neither Nasser nor Khamenei was a democratic figure, and neither presented Iraqis with a model of democratic pan-governance that would make them content with being a minority within their pan-Arab or pan-Shia unity.
A ten-year journey
Since the beginning of the Arab Spring in early 2011, the Iraqi people have held large protest rallies known as ‘Friday protests’. These protests, a significant movement symbolising their struggle for political change against an Iran-backed government, marked a turning point in Iraq’s political trajectory. Nouri al-Maliki, then Prime Minister and a strong ally of Iran, initially suppressed these protests. In addition, with the rise of ISIS in 2014, there was no space to express protest by the Iraqi people. However, widespread protests began again in 2017. At the same time, a field report showed that people’s attendance at Iraqi mosques had decreased, public trust in religious political parties had disappeared, and the inefficiency of the political system had become reminiscent of corruption and inefficiency in the neighbouring country, Iran, for the Iraqi people.
Not repeating the same mistake
Empowered by new media, particularly social media, Iraqis gained insight into the economic and political crises in Iran. They saw the challenges posed by the religious government in Iran and realised they were at risk of following a similar path. This realisation fueled their determination to avert such a fate. They voiced their concerns through street protests and, at the ballot box, threw their support behind groups that distanced themselves from the existing system. This led to a significant shift in the 2018 general elections, with a group led by Muqtada al-Sadr, a vocal advocate of secularism, winning the first round of voting. This group even formed an alliance with the Iraqi Communist Party to combat poverty and injustice.
However, the 2018 elections and their political changes were not a miracle. Iraqis realised very soon that the mere existence of a political system is not enough, and that with the existence of undemocratic parties, this system is once again forced to reproduce sectarianism. When Iraqis saw Muqtada Sadr’s struggles for power and, at the same time, saw his photo next to Khamenei and Qassem Soleimani on Ashura in Tehran, they realised this discrepancy even more. Although there was no Supreme Leader (Wali ye Faghih) or Guardian Council (Shouray ye Negahban) in Iraq, the political parties were still religious and sectarian. Many corrupt politicians and religious figures who had been in power for the previous fifteen years were the main obstacle to reforms. Thus, the second wave of uprising began in 2019, leading to the establishment of the first government not controlled by Tehran in 2020. It was the beginning of the end of Iran’s Shia regional policy in Iraq.
The beginning of a new era
The political developments of the last few years have shown that Iraqi Shia Arabs prefer to be Iraqis rather than being Arabs or Shias. The fact that the pro-Iran Shia militias stayed out of the Iran-Israel war in June 2025 is not a new phenomenon. Since 2020, Iraq has gradually and strategically distanced itself from Iran, adhered to most of the US sanctions against Iran, forged ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, and, more importantly, supplied the global oil market with its products to mitigate the impact of the absence of Iranian oil. The country’s oil exports broke the century-old record of Iraqi exports at the height of Iran’s oil sanctions, reaching 4.7 million barrels per day in 2018. Some shadow companies in Iraq’s oil industry are still struggling with American sanctions, the latest being a few days ago, on September 3rd. The strategic shift in Iraq’s foreign policy and economic independence from Iran marks the end of Iran’s Shia Crescent policy in Iraq, a significant development in the region’s geopolitical landscape.
A pattern to follow
Now, Shia Iraqis, the largest ethnic and religious group in Iraq that constitutes 65 per cent of the Iraqi population, enjoy having an Iraqi identity and a governance free from any pan-Arabism or pan-Shiism, free from regional interventions, and paying the price of neighbours’ ambitions. They are trying to find a legal and peaceful solution with the second largest ethnic group in Iraq, the Kurds, who have the same concerns regarding the two above pan-isms. Indeed, now Iraqi Shias are on the same path that the Kurds have taken since the fall of Saddam in 2003; keeping balance between neighbouring countries, having excellent relations with Europeans and the US, contributing to the defeat of ISIS, and performing an acceptable level of stability and democracy in their domestic affairs. The economic dispute over oil exports in the Kurdish region, between the Kurdistan Regional Governmnet and the Central Governmnet of Baghdad, was resolved in September 2025, which was another indication of a successful devolution of power within a federal framework. The new Iraq can be the beginning of a new Middle East, followed by political changes in Syria, Turkey and Iran.