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After the U.S. strike killing Iranian general Qasim Suleimani in Iraq, U.S. critics warned that the president’s lack of strategy may escalate to outright war with Iran. After Iran’s clearly muted retaliatory strike last night and President Trump’s address this morning it seems that the escalation many commentators feared will be avoided. Assuming that is the case, many Americans’ attention will turn back to other matters and any future mention of these events will focus on the tragedies that almost ensued.
Before we all breathe our sigh of relief, however, at avoiding another war, I would like to point out the implications of the strike for Iraqis who have, in one form or another, been living in the conditions of war since 2003. For Iraqi society, it seems the damage may already have been done.
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 Image credit: https://mosul-eye.org/ Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Sunni and Shia alike, have been taking to the streets in cities across Iraq to protest their country’s failed political system and its rampant corruption. Although the demonstrations in Iraq have been going on for weeks, they are finally getting some coverage in western media. The issues at stake in these protests and the government’s responses to them are complex and there is a lot to say, but for this post I will focus on one aspect of these protests that I think is important for Americans to understand: sectarianism or, more accurately, the lack of it.
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Marcus Smith, PhDMarcus is a historian specializing in Modern Middle East History 
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