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Since Saddam was overthrown by the US, Shiites have been the biggest winners in Iraq.
Despite their internal disputes, Shiite Muslims are the big winners of 2003's invasion and hold the preeminence over Sunnis, the ethnic Kurdish minority in post-war Iraq’s sectarian power sharing.
Baghdad (AFP). Twenty years after Saddam Hussein was ousted by the US-led forces in Iraq, the long-oppressed Shiite majority now controls the country's politics with all the pitfalls and powers that go with it.
Despite their internal disputes, Shiite Muslims are the big winners of 2003's invasion and hold the preeminence over Sunnis, the ethnic Kurdish minority in post-war Iraq’s sectarian power sharing.
After Saddam's fall, the most obvious change for Shiites was their freedom to once again celebrate their faith and express their devotion towards Imam Hussein.
"Were the Shiites the winners in the post-2003 order?"They are the winners because they are the largest group, and therefore have the largest share of government," Marsin Alshamary, a Harvard University research fellow on the Middle East Initiative, said.
"It was only natural that the US's principal interlocutors in Iraq would be the best placed to benefit from the US-led regime changes. Unsurprisingly, the new order was shaped by the US and Iraqi opposition's obsession with ethno-sectarian identities.
Alshamary stated that since then, "we have seen consolidation of the political elite. What has happened over the past 20 years is that they have moved from being officials to being head of political parties that still hold power, even though they technically don’t have a state position."
"Most Iraqis who were born after 2003... grew-up in a state where rising income inequality and blatant corruption are the most common problems they face. They see this as the enemy they are fighting.
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