Iraq’s Fragile State and Intervention of Regional and Trans-Regional Powers (2011-2018)

The Middle East region has experienced various patterns and processes of statehood since the formation of national units. The Arab awakening which encompassed the huge part of the Middle East and North Africa since 2011 was promising a fundamental transformation in the statehood patterns following an intermittent period of decline and weakness. However, the mentioned developments have been coupled with political chaos, security crisis and even civil war. Countries such as Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen in which the concepts of state and nation had not been realized and authoritarian regimes had been the main factor of the connection of the state's parts, have experienced a complicated situation regarding the indexes of fragility and vulnerability. This situation in Iraq goes back to the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the fall of Saddam Hossein. However, the Arab spring and the erosion of state in the region have exacerbated the vulnerability and fragility of Iraq in an unprecedented way.