Revolutionary Youth Movement Shakes Iraq

https://vimeo.com/428306333 The massive movement of young workers and students in the streets not only demands an end to corruption but for the end of the regime itself, with a new constitution and governing structure. Sabah  Alnasseri joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.  Rough Transcript Paul Jay Welcome to theAnalysis.news podcast. In Iraq, the new government must deal with the Covid crisis. A growing protest movement and a threat from a reorganized ISIS. The newly elected prime minister is said to have been acceptable to both Iran and the United States. Trump's bellicose attitude towards Iran might again embroil Iraq in U.S. machinations in the region. Now joining us to analyze the situation in Iraq and around Iraq is Professor Sabah Alnasseri. He was born in Basra, Iraq, and earned his doctorate in Frankfurt, Germany. Sabah teaches Middle East politics at the Department of Politics at York University in Toronto. Thanks for joining us, Sabah. Good to be with you, Paul. First of all, how is the Covid pandemic affecting Iraq? And I assume the economy is to some extent closed down. Right. And so in countries that have such a weak health care system and particularly Iraq's ravaged by war, I think there was a much better health care system under Saddam than there probably is now. Right. So so how are they dealing with all this?  Sabah Alnasseri Well, luckily, I don't know. I can't explain it. I mean, the rate is very low compared to other countries. Paul Jay But is that just because there's not much testing going on.  Sabah Alnasseri Maybe. Yeah, maybe. But even the death rate is very low. I mean, the mistake was at the beginning when Iraq kept the border to Iran open. They didn't shut down the border, although they knew there was a high rate of infections and so on in Iran. So it moved from Iran to Iraq about time. And after that, the government shut down the border and then things got better. They got a situation to control. But still, as you said, maybe because they don't have enough testing. We don't know the scope of the pandemic in Iraq, but generally the region like Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, etc., Syria, even Yemen, it is remarkably less than other countries, let's say, in Iran or Turkey, the border country. And is there any explaining that they tried? I'm not to the first few days when they kept the border open and then they realized there's a problem. They stopped taking that that the right approach. And remarkably, the people really collaborated with the government. They stayed home despite, you know, the crisis, despite lack of resources, despite a lack of survival. The biggest chunk of the Iraqi population let live from day to day so they don't actually work for the day. They cannot survive. But still, because you know that they cooperate with the government, they staid at home. They and the most remarkable, remarkable thing was not from the government, but from the people themselves. People started especially activists, organizing food, logistics, and so on. For the families in need in all the provinces of Iraq. And that worked very well. That supported, you know, millions of people who couldn't survive otherwise. Paul Jay I would think that there's probably a lack of reporting on deaths connected with Covid, given there's so much lack of reporting that even in some of the more advanced countries, especially the United States, Canada is just catching up with with the stats.