James Durso
Iraq’s leaders have a lot on their minds, stuck between Israel and Iran as the two countries veer closer to open conflict.
Iraq is still recovering from the reign of Saddam Hussein, the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, decades of sanctions that followed the 1991 invasion of Kuwait, liberation by the U.S.-led “coalition of the willing” in 2003, a post-invasion reconstruction that wasted much of the $60 billion spent, and the Islamic State insurgency of 2014-2019.
The U.S.-led sanctions campaign against the Saddam Hussein regime disrupted the Iraqi economy, causing inflation to skyrocket, unemployment numbers to hit record levels, a dramatic fall in living standards, the collapse of the infrastructure, and a serious decline in the availability of public services. But it was OK, as Madeleine Albright (then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations) informed Americans, “we think the price is worth it.” All that, plus Saddam’s crimes against his own people for almost 25 years, weigh on Iraq’s as they navigate to a peaceful, prosperous future.
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