Iraqi social media across the board are adamant that, if the biggest crooks are not arrested, then the current government raids are mere public relations. As it so happens, the biggest crooks immediately voiced their support for the anti-corruption arrests. Talk about a preemptive move.

Buoyed by the eruption of joy greeting the arrest of corrupt lawmakers and government officials in Iraq. Duped too often by lying bureaucrats promising them relief from the systemic thieving of the post-2003 state, the euphoria exhibited by Iraqis today is heartwarming—-and hopeful.

Me by the Western Indian Ocean in Australia

Among all the tributes to Rob Reiner and the many accolades for his films, nobody has mentioned his political investigation of the 2003 war, Shock and Awe. A very courageous film

The spirit underneath these institutions was Iraqi: angry,frustrated and alienated. But under Colonial pressure, it had to submit. So can we call the fictitious legality of Mandate and “independent” Iraq a politics of form? Definitely it substance!

In writing and researching the history of 1930’s Iraq, I keep coming across a conundrum. If Iraq’s institutions under the short/lived monarchy were largely transplanted intact from Britain, does this really mean that Iraq was “created” by Britain?

The wail of the sirens triggers a compulsive response. Are my windows tightly shut and boarded? Did I forget the oven on? Maybe I should sleep in the corridor of my apartment and not in my bedroom.

Over the past three days of the Israel-iran conflict, I’ve had interesting convos with elderly Iraqis. They remember the Iraq wars of 1991-2003 vividly. Their instinctive responses to air raid sirens in the late afternoon are symptomatic of that time,

Air raid sirens going off again in Amman

This may be writing in a void but I just want to address the idea that, insofar as academia is concerned, Iraq is an outlier. It has a small and devoted following of gifted Ottomanists and Arabists who write superb articles but their work falls into a well. Like a brick in a deep well.

This particular boundary is now being challenged every day but the maxim still holds. You have the absolute freedom to waste yourself on drinks or drugs but don’t go near Palestine.

After several years at an American university, I commented to a friend that freedom in the US was “less” than in Europe, that there were guardrails set up to ensure that no boundaries would be crossed. One of these boundaries was Palestine.

An older Iraqi friend asked me who this META was. I was in the process of explaining when she picked up her phone and asked META , “who are you?” The reply was befuddling (to her) : “ I am here to help”!

Just met a nice American woman who had been let go from her post at USAID in Jordan. She said 10,000 of her colleagues were to leave for the US tomorrow. She was leaving still being owed her salary.

The Silk Roads exhibit at the British Museum is a must-see. One of its original ideas is linking the British Isles to Japan, much earlier than the traditional schema of Mongols in the thirteenth century.

The football competition in Basra between Iraq and Jordan yesterday resulted in a scoreless draw for both teams competing for the third round of the World Cup qualifiers

In football today, Iraq is playing against Jordan in Basra.

Has any historian on this list been presented with the challenge to complete a manuscript based on notes and footnotes that the potential author hoped to build his book?

There are many oral historians working on collecting the memoirs of exiled or expat Iraqis in Jordan and the US. This is not just a Western phenomenon but a universal one.

I just binge watched Only Murders in the Building. It’s totally unhinged on a certain level. On another, it’s boring.

The point of being an Iraqi expat, it seems to me, is to remain attached to your Iraqi identity in the face of sometimes considerable odds. In my case, it has been a struggle because I constantly have to define and redefine what it means to be an Iraqi abroad.

Thank you all the same, Howard!

What is “culture”? Such an ambivalent and yet all-inclusive term.

Throwing this out there: what free-to-read academic journals are available to read online?

Thank you all for your informed replies.