7:13pm in Baghdad and Tahrir Square is gradually filling up for tomorrow's anticipated revival of protests. Tomorrow's theme focuses on rejecting all foreign interference. #IraqProtests pic.twitter.com/souDupt8UL
— Rasha Al Aqeedi (@RashaAlAqeedi) January 9, 2020
Iraq’s ongoing protest movements are currently in full swing. The assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Republican Guard Corps (IRCG), has placed Iraq at the centre of an international geopolitical crisis that could see the country turn into the front lines in a war it neither wants nor is able to prevent.
One of the early casualties of the recent escalation in US-Iranian tensions has been the protest movement. Events leading up to Soleimani’s assassination had already bumped the protesters off the news cycle and, more importantly, had given their opponents what they had been searching for in vain since October: a counter-cause to rally around and push back with.