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Today, as the war in Iran rages on, Iraqis are finding themselves caught in the crossfire.

Even if it stops, it basically has opened a wound that may become worse as time goes.

Why are both sides attacking Iraq?

I'm Kevin Horton and this is The Take. Before we continue with today's show, we want to keep telling you these overlooked stories, the ones this war is pushing to the sidelines, the ones that don't make the big headlines.

So what do you make of this one? Do you want to hear more about places in the

region that don't get the media coverage? If so, leave us a comment. Tell us what we should do next.

My name is Abdullah Harris. I am a researcher based in London focused on the Middle East,

especially the geopolitics of the Middle East, especially the geopolitics of the

Middle East, particularly places like Iraq, Iran, and the neighboring countries.

Abdullah, welcome to the take. Let me set the scene just a little bit, because there's been a lot

of fighting happening in Iraq since the war started on February 28.

But I was thinking, before we dive into these issues, we could take a step back and talk about

Iraq itself. Maybe you can tell us in the broadest possible strokes, who are the actors who are

sharing power in Iraq right now and how they're doing it?

Yeah. So Iraq is basically there are three main actors. You have Shias, you have Sunni Arabs, and then you have Kurds. So these are

the main actors who basically make the Iraqi state. And within the Shias, obviously, you have people who are closer to Iran, some

people who are less close to Iran who want an actual Iraqi national project. And then within the

Sunnis, you have various actors. Some of them are closer to Iran as well. Some of them are

closer to the Gulf countries, to the West. It's the same with

Kurds. You have several Kurdish actors in the north. Why don't you actually give me a picture

of the situation before the war broke out on February 20th? So before the war, basically, you had these

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