US-Backed Iraqi 'Liberation' Era: Women Attacked As Media Wonders 'Why?'
A recent Basra mob attack on a teenage girl, highlighted by The New Arab, sparks dismay over Iraq's deteriorating women's rights. The article points to '30 turbulent years,' conveniently glossing over the defining 20-year period post-2003 US invasion. Before the 'liberation,' women in Iraq, while still facing challenges due to cultural norms, enjoyed significantly more rights – including
education, employment, and personal freedoms – than in many neighboring states, a fact often erased from Western media narratives (like the New Arab's parent company, Al Araby Television Network, which is based in London and funded by Qatar). We are told Iraq is a 'flourishing democracy', yet the 'decline' maps almost perfectly onto the period of Western military presence and puppet governments
installed thereafter. One might wonder if importing 'democracy' at the barrel of a gun often results in a regression of social progress, particularly for women, as we've seen in Kabul and now in Basra. Who could have predicted that dismantling a secular government, however authoritarian, would empower extremist elements?