Abdulhadi Alhamiri, Ministry Adviser. Director General (Retired ) Iraq
The answer is definitely yes .
In 2014 ISIS occupied a large chunk of the country and some major cities including the second city in Iraq Mosul were occupied . The battle for kicking ISIS out was just starting .
After 5 years all Iraq from south to north is quite peaceful and safe after the defeat of ISIS in 17 Dec. 2017 , however Iraq have now to address tremendous challenges and formidable obstacles in order to achieve final stability and prosperity , these can be summarized as follows :
- Due to the savagery of ISIS and the ferocity of battles fought to defeat it , 6.8 million people in Iraq now in need of humanitarian assistance , 2 millions displaced persons need to return home and restart their lives and 138000 residential buildings were damaged half of them totally need to be rebuilt in addition to the destruction of the infrastructure .
- Iraq is known as the land of the two rivers ( the Tigris and the Euphrates) . These two rivers get their water mainly from Turkey and Iran .Turkey had built so many dams on the Euphrates the last of which the Alisa Dam and Iran diverted the 43 tributaries to the Tigris back into Iran , this resulted last summer in people south of Iraq having no fresh water to drink . Human , animal and bird life in the marshes was destroyed so was agriculture . The neighbors of Iraq need to be pressurized to be reasonable and Iraq need also to invest in sea water desalination projects and water saving agriculture .
- After 30 years of wars and destruction Iraq lost completely its industrial sector private and public in addition to most of its agriculture , this resulted in total dependence on oil for income and import of all consumable and durable products including food as well massive unemployment and total dependence on government employment.The need for economic reform is paramount as the country is vulnerable to change in oil prices and outside economic pressures and blockades .
- Iraq is an edge country for the Arab world and thus a place for the struggle between the Arab influence and the Persian and Turkish influences .Iraq need to be strong to ward off undesirable influences
- Iraq is rich in natural resources and has a much regarded strategic location . Iraq has a multi religious , multi sectarian , multi ethnic composition AS much as all this is good and beautiful it does tempt rogue countries to meddle in Iraqi affairs and that is also a continuous challenge to be dealt with .
