Both my parents are Iraqi Arabs from Baghdad. They escaped Iraq in the early 90s during Saddam's infamous Faith Campaign, where both my relatively leftist dad and my shia mother both fell under some prosecution. They left to Syria and then got resettled in the US thanks to a UN program. I speak fluent Arabic and meet up every year with my extended family in Jordan or Turkey, as both countries are relatively safe for Iraqis.
AMA about Iraqi politics, Iraqi society and the general cultural and political state of the Arab World. I will answer a few questions directly, but I'll keep the rest for late night today as I will go on a long ass drive in an hour.
Do you see a possibility of ever returning to Iraq? Or is the situation just irreversibly fucked for the foreseeable decades?
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.