Revolution in Iraq Against Corruption: Will It Succeed?
Iraq has recently launched a strong campaign and revolution against corruption, raising questions about its timing and whether the campaign aims to enhance the state’s prestige or is driven by regional and international political and economic pressures. After Saddam Hussein’s fall in 2003, the landscape in Iraq shifted from repression, dictatorship, and terror to not only deep-seated dictatorship but also pervasive corruption. While corruption during Saddam’s era was highly centralized and confined to state and security apparatuses surrounding the president—meaning it operated with presidential authorization, albeit unofficially, yet was widely accepted—it has since transformed into widespread corruption shared among political parties, forces, and entities within and outside Iraq. These actors have been active since 2003, entrenching their corrupt practices, particularly amid the collapse of several state institutions after the war and the clear weakness of oversight bodies.
There may not be a specific timing for combating corruption in any society or state; all times are suitable. However, when it occurs suddenly, as in the Iraqi case, a legitimate question arises regarding the sustainability of such a campaign. A strong beginning is usually insufficient on its own unless accompanied by mechanisms to ensure the continuity of anti-corruption efforts, establishing a legal, constitutional, and regulatory framework that does not change with shifting temporal circumstances. This requires consistent, neutral political and judicial backing, and extending campaigns to the roots of corruption networks and their origins, rather than merely punishing isolated individuals.
The corruption files presented in Iraq so far have included the arrest of numerous officials and employees, as well as the naming of prominent political and party figures, all accused of financial corruption cases and fictitious contracts exceeding billions of dollars, along with administrative and parliamentary corruption. This is a positive development if it continues at this pace.
Observers of Iraq’s purification campaign, as is usual with every anti-corruption drive anywhere, see positive indicators that have sparked a serious and strong beginning, opening files and arresting prominent names. However, it has not yet reached the stage of structural change in combating corruption, which should be based on solid foundations, targeting all links and intermediaries protected by the judiciary and the law. In other words, it requires changing the environment that allowed corruption to build its institutions, protect itself from within, and grant itself immunity, strength, and influence outside the law.
Containing corruption anywhere, whether in Iraq or elsewhere, is far from easy. Corruption as an institution encompasses a complex network of intertwined interests and relationships, most of which extend deep into the state and its institutions. Therefore, the safest approach to confronting it is to dismantle such relationships, remove their protections, and support oversight bodies. This is a role that involves everyone, not just the state. The citizen, the judiciary, the media, and society are all responsible until corruption is eradicated from its roots, rather than merely punishing individuals.
Soad Fahad Al-Muajjal
