Most infrastructure is still fucked, we still can't guarantee 24 hours of fucking electricity during the summer. American-backed privatization has led to incredible corruption on all levels of both state and private enterprises, which deeply affects people's ordinary lives as one would think. Millions of people lost loved ones to both the invasion and the civil war phase. The physical and psychological impact is still impossible to gauge, but from personal experiences I know several family members that either have physical damage such as amputated legs or are stuck in a fugue state-like condition mentally due to shock. People don't just "cope", they stack up several mental problems and trauma that will fuck them up for the rest of their lives. I'll never forget my mom getting calls in the middle of the night from Iraq when someone close dies.

That is a very difficult question. In my opinion, there's no direct hope honestly. The question of left values and their growth in the Middle East is connected with three entities that have to be destroyed or weakened. The three entities are the US, Israel and the Gulf Cooperation Council in that order. As long as the US exists, the other two will both directly and indirectly subvert any attempt of real solidarity between the people. Look at Egypt from 2011 to 2015. In 2011, millions of Egyptians stepped up in amazing solidarity and overthrew the military dictatorship that had subverted the people for 60 years and had run a horrible neoliberal experiment for 40 years. In one year after the revolution, free elections were held and a real political life had emerged where you could find socialists debating islamists on a random street corner. The socialist candidate unfortunately lost but performed incredibly well and massively overperformed polls. Anyway, the "wrong" islamists win, the Muslim Brotherhood were in power after 100 years of fighting. Their win was entirely legitmate, but they threatened the Israeli-Egyptian "peace" agreement and western business interests. Within a year, a US-Israel-Saudi-UAE-backed military coup with upper class liberals supporting it ousted the legitimate government and massacred thousands of Brotherhood supporters in the streets. The coup leader Sisi is now still president after winning two bogus elections and changing the term limit laws. As you can see, nothing truly grassroots can happen as long as those three entities exist

Horrible, but could've been worse somehow. The state of public hospitals is genuinely terrible and all good doctors left Iraq a long time ago to get paid a lot more in the Gulf, Turkey or in America. Private hospitals are a lot better in terms of doctors and material, but they're way too expensive for the average Iraqi. My uncle had bad covid in late July and he went to a private hospital. A two-day stay + treatments cost him around 1000 USD, in a country where average monthly wages are around 300-450 USD. The goverment controlled the early spread quite decently, but the economic impact forced them to re-open leading to a huge long wave, which is now thankfully slowing down.

Our cuisine is pretty much a Gulf-Iranian-Med mashup. My favourite dish by far is Masgouf, a nice grilled carp fish that is always delicious

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masgouf

Short answer, I hate them and they all should never be forgiven.

Long answer, every single troop commited an incredible crime by participating voluntarily in the slaughter and plunder of a far away country in a completely fake war. I don't hate Vietnam vets, because most of them were forced by the Draft, but there's no excuse for choosing the Iraq War path. Anyone who makes an excuse for their participation in the criminal Iraq War is unredeemable imo, I don't give a fuck about anyone joining the army because they couldn't afford college, go tell that to the women that US Army widowed and the kids that they orphaned. On the other hand, I'm willing to accept any US troop as a comrade as long as they know that they're disgusting human scum for doing what they did without any excuses. I know it sounds maybe harsh, but I want them to be weighed down by the crime that they committed and live with those consequences even if they're reformed.

That's a big question that I was hoping to see. The establishment of a Kurdish state in general is interesting, as the split in views between various Kurdish political actors is very underestimated in leftist circles. Syrian "Rojavan" Kurdish parties are mainly MLs and Anarchists, and they genuinely believe in some grand "communist/anarchist" project as basis for a Kurdish state. In Iraq it's completely different and much worse. The Iraqi Kurdistan government has basically run a huge neoliberal oligarchy since 1991, which has failed immensely in improving the lives of ordinary people unlike Rojava. It says a lot that the main backers of Iraqi Kurdistan referendum are Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as they want to establish a second Israel in the Middle East to further US interests and the neoliberal experiment. The two dominating Iraqi Kurdish political dynasties, the Barzanis and the Talabanis, have both made themselves very rich and bought a huge number of properties in the US and Europe, while regular Kurdish people only recieved their salaries for 3/12 months last year. In summary, I support the idea of Kurdish self-determination as long as it's driven through the Syrian Kurdish establishments. An Iraqi Kurdish-led project as outlined in 2017 would be horrible for the region and for communists in general, so hell no to that.

I can't sleep so I'll keep answering lol.

What would you want Western libs to know from your experience or perspectives that they don’t seem to? Same question but about Western leftists.

For libs, I'd say the most utterly disgusting thing I've seen is the rehabilitation of war criminals and murderers like Bush, Cheney and Bremer. It's impossible to overstate how much of a criminal Bush is. The thing is, libs don't really care about the experiences of Iraqis under the pure brutality of the US invasion, they just want a few token feel good stories to "halalify" their belief in US institutions. For leftists, please don't romanticise the people of the third world and their collective experiences. Even if the anti-imperialist positions that many hold are cool and should be applauded, the majority, just like in the US, hold some extremely reactionary values and are downright abusive towards most of our ideas about social order as "western leftists". LGBT rights, women's rights, sexual liberation won't happen anytime soon even if the US hegemony is defeated, chances are that things will get even more reactionary.

What do you believe would be the most useful way to have solidarity with Iraqis within and outside Iraq?

Delegitimize western media, as they were and still are supporters of imperial projects. Donate money to real local women's rights and LGBT orgs, as those two groups suffer the most in today's jungle of a country. Do everything you can to educate people about the criminality of Bush and the rest of his criminal gangs, don't let the media rehabilitate them even more. Try to understand the build-up to the Iraq War, as the same project is currently attacking Iran, Bolivia and Venezuela. I don't know what else people can do honestly

Whats your opinion on the current iraqi gov, do you see them as progress for your country after saddam.

That's a very difficult question that millions of Iraqis struggle with, and the general answer is both yes and no. Iraqis today are a little freer, they travel a little more and especially Shias are way more free to practice their version of Islam. On the other hand, thanks to the American-installed structures, the "socialist" aspects of Baathism have been almost entierly stripped away and sold off in insanely corrupt deals. No more quality free healthcare, no more quality free education, no more deliveries of high quality essentials like rice and sugar to poor families. In summary, the current government is more corrupt and provides generally worse services, but at the same time you can at least call your local politician a dumbass without getting sent to a secret prison. So no progress, but more of a sidestep imo.

what do you think about the iranian influence in iraq, is it good or a bad thing

This is also a very sensitive subject, as it can examined through multiple lenses. From a general standpoint, it's good that Iraq is resisting further American imperialism through Iran, but sometimes you have to look deeper to see a different perspective. Despite "critical anti-imperialist support" for Iran, we still have to remember that Iran is a deeply religious fundamentalist country with a long-lasting historical interest for Iraq. It's very sad to see, but for most of the Iraqi working class, Iran represents a right-wing movement that intends to further militarize the country and directly attack personal freedoms. The massive youth protests last year were definitely American-backed in many ways, but those protests had youth that genuinely believed in women's rights, sexual liberation and LGBT rights, which is all unprecedented in Iraq. I think a good way to summarize the Iran problem is that most Iraqis want Iranian religious fundamentalism out, but would still support Iran if a US-led war against Iran started

My favourite is Masgouf, but that's a very complicated cooking process usually. A simpler also delicious dish is Qeema, which is traditionally connected with the large gatherings of Iraqi shias in the south.

I still haven't been to Iraq as an adult for a variety of reasons, but mainly because the security situation is not good. I had a flight booked to visit the first time in January, which I moved to March because of the instability post-Soleimani murder, which then got cancelled due to Covid. I'll probably never get the chance to "live" in Iraq as the situation is definitely "irreversibly fucked", but I truly hope that I will be at least able to visit and experience the country properly in a few years.

Not really, America was the main reason behind Iraq's misery starting from the incredibly brutal 1st Gulf War, and even more brutal sanctions that starved millions. So no, people have hated America as an entity immensely since 1990, but I can't really comment on how they viewed Americans as individuals, but probably it wasn't that bad.

10 years ago I'd say hell no, but now things are changing. The biggest perceived source of religious fundamentalism and right wing reactionary views isn't longer driven by the US, but by Iran. The US still represents murder, imperialism and plunder for all Iraqis, but for desperate poorer "woke" Iraqis, the US also represents to a degree LGBT rights, women's rights, sexual liberation and general personal freedoms.

My dad speaks of it as the golden age of modern Iraq. The British-imposed monarchy was finally deposed after sucking the nation dry for decades, and real grassroots activism and action was happening on a huge scale. Althrough autocratic tendencies took over and communists were brutally surpressed, we still experienced the growth of a decent welfare state that massively improved the lives of millions. Huge infrastructure projects and housing projects during that time basically lifted millions out of poverty. The political instability and the decisive defeat of "Arab socialism" in 1967 tanked the legitmacy of the project and accelerated the nation into the brutal Baathist hands sadly.

Have you ever been to old Samarra? The mosque is beautiful and it’s the best preserved ancient city in the world.

Actually not, Samarra is in a weird place security-wise but I would definitely visit when the time is right.

Also for people like your parents who obviously hate Saddam, how do they view the US invasion to oust him?

That's another complicated situation, as it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that on the day of the Fall of Baghdad, almost every Iraqi felt relief. At the time, the invasion was seen almost as necessary evil, which needed to happen in order to remove the bigger evil. A few weeks later, when the atrocities and the pure war crimes started to appear clearly, the concept of lesser evil definitely vanished and the invasion is now purely viewed as something that shouldn't have happened.