Why do some Iraqis defend Khamenei’s regime?

To understand why some Iraqis today defend the Islamic Republic of Iran with a fervor that borders on devotion, one must return to the 1980s—specifically to the eight brutal years of the Iran–Iraq War. The answer begins there, in the trenches, before it is distorted by the post‑2003 political order that built what I call “the fabricated Iraq,” where nationalism was redefined along sectarian lines rather than civic ones. If one were to take the most zealous Iraqi defender of the Iranian regime today—someone who speaks in the language of “we and they are one”—and trace the history of his father, grandfather, uncle, or brother during the Iran–Iraq War, one would likely find a man who fought bravely against Iran’s […]