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America has a lot less influence than people assume in Iraq. It has not had influence since 2011 on the political process in Iraq.

Elections who gets to choose the government, who assigns different roles.

This has been 100% in Iranian affair and it's been that way since 2011. You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast that brings you the stories from behind the

front lines.

Here are your hosts. Hello, welcome to war college. I am your host Matthew Galt, Iraq. Since October of last year, a protest movement has taken hold of the country. After 16 years of conflict, Iraq is tired. Its people want

political and economic reforms. America didn't pay attention. Until that was a malicious

stormed an embassy, America killed an Iranian general,

and tensions between the US and Iran flared. For a moment, the whole world paid attention.

They should keep paying attention. Here to explain why is Russia Al-Aqidi.

Russia is from the Iraqi city of Mosul.

She is the managing editor of Rais Your Voice,

an Arabic language platform covering politics and society in Iraq.

Her work has appeared in the Atlantic and her research has appeared at George Washington University

and in stories by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press.

Russia, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having you, Matthew.

All right, so we'd like to get broad stuff here at the beginning, kind of, you know, to get you know broad stuff here at the beginning kind of you know to get the basics out of the way so what

...