Event

Religion and Aspirations for a Secular State in Iraq: Views from the Ground

Date & Time

Tuesday

Nov. 1, 2022

10:00am – 11:00am ET

Event Sponsor

Middle East Program

Overview

Iraqis display growing frustration over politics in their country, which has boiled over multiple times in recent years. Most remarkably in 2019 when hundreds of Iraqis joined the Tishreen protests to demand change.

In July 2022, Enabling Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC), a DC-based NGO, conducted a survey that involved 1,062 Iraqis, focused on the age group 18 – 40, from off of Iraq’s provinces. The findings suggestion people express different and nuanced opinions on the role of religious parties in politics and clerics in state affairs, in addition to their ideas on how to replace the sectarian power-sharing form of governance that has proven to be dysfunctional since 2003.

Read the survey results.

Speakers

Geneive Abdo

Former Fellow;
Former Fellow, Brookings Doha Center

Sajad Jiyad

Fellow, Century International; Director, Shia Politics Working Group

Hamzeh Hadad

Visiting Fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations

Introduction

James F. Jeffrey

Chair of the Middle East Program, Slater Family Distinguished Fellow;
Former ambassador to Iraq and Turkey, and Special Envoy to the Global Coalition To Defeat ISIS

Moderator

Omar Al-Nidawi

Program Manager, Enabling Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC)

Hosted By

Middle East Program

The Wilson Center’s Middle East Program serves as a crucial resource for the policymaking community and beyond, providing analyses and research that helps inform US foreign policymaking, stimulates public debate, and expands knowledge about issues in the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Read more

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