“Both the United States and Iran tacitly support [Iraq’s sectarian spoils] system, but most Iraqis do not. And now they—particularly young Shiites who are no longer willing to be subservient to Iran-backed communal leaders now that the danger posed by the Islamic State has passed—are rebelling,” writes CFR’s Max Boot.
“The protests have underscored a new reality for Iran and its proxies. No matter the self-styled revolutionary politics of the Iranian regime, it’s turning into a counterrevolutionary power in the region,” Ishaan Tharoor writes for the Washington Post. |