Iraq at a crossroads. Elections and the challenges of stabilization beyond Daesh

Fifteen years separate the “mission accomplished” discourse, pronounced by George W. Bush standing on the deck of USS Abraham Lincoln, from the defeat of Daesh announced by the Iraqi Premier Abadi amidst the blackened ruins of Mosul. Three lustra during which Iraq was swallowed by a cyclic vortex of violence and attacks, hopes and illusions, without any solution of continuity and, above all, without anyone being able to interrupt it, even when circumstances would have allowed it. This must be very clear: a good part of Iraq’s troubled recent history has been written by carelessness, negligence, decisions that were perhaps too rash, unfortunately poorly thought-out solutions with regard to their consequences, and a chronic myopia towards the root causes of the problems that afflict the country.