{"id":12877,"date":"2026-06-24T09:44:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bayancenter.org\/en\/?p=12877"},"modified":"2026-06-24T09:44:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:44:23","slug":"the-illusion-of-victory-and-the-reproduction-of-political-failure-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bayancenter.org\/en\/2026\/06\/12877\/","title":{"rendered":"The Illusion of Victory and the Reproduction of Political Failure in Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mustafa AlSaray \/ Director of Research and Studies at Al-Bayan Center for Planning and Studies \/ Academic in Political Science – University of Baghdad <\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Since 2003, the political crises in Iraq have not merely been crises of the transfer of power, but also a crisis of political perception regarding the nature of the state, its function, and the limits of power within it. Iraqi political forces, with their various orientations, have treated every electoral process or governmental agreement as a moment of final victory, rather than a temporary stage within a fragile and complex political system where domestic and foreign interests, identities, and balances intersect. From here, one of the most dangerous phenomena in the modern Iraqi experience was formed, namely: “the illusion of victory”.<\/p>\n

The illusion of victory is not confined to being a psychological feeling or a media discourse; rather, it has transformed into a mechanism for managing political action; for every bloc that believes it has achieved an electoral or negotiating victory behaves as though it is the sole representative of legitimacy, and seeks to reshape the political process according to a mentality of acquisition rather than a mentality of management and balance. Conversely, this very victory transforms into an entry point for producing a new crisis more complex than its predecessor.<\/p>\n

In the specific case of Iraq, the feeling of political forces that they have achieved an electoral or negotiating victory often drives them to commit a series of structural errors that practically lead to weakening both the government and the state, at the very time they think they are reinforcing their power and influence. Since the 2018 elections, passing through the 2021 elections and the subsequent phase of political deadlock, up to the reshaping of alliances that culminated in the designation and formation of the government on May 14, 2026, Iraqi political forces have reproduced the exact same pattern: declaring victory, expanding influence, monopolizing decision-making, and then colliding with the structural reality of the crisis-ridden political system. It is as if the Iraqi political system lives within a recurring cycle of “short victories” and “long failures”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Download PDF<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mustafa AlSaray \/ Director of Research and Studies at Al-Bayan Center for Planning and Studies \/ Academic in Political Science – University of Baghdad Since 2003, the political crises in Iraq have not merely been crises of the transfer of power, but also a crisis of political perception regarding the nature of the state, its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[534,7,19,1732,1731],"tags":[758,45,1887,1883,304,1884,1886,1885,1882],"class_list":["post-12877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-domestic-and-foreign-policy","category-politics","category-opinions","category-political-studies","category-research-department","tag-al-bayan-center","tag-iraq","tag-mustafa-alsaray","tag-political-failure","tag-political-parties","tag-shiite-blocs","tag-the-illusion-of-victory","tag-the-iraqi-political-system","tag-the-majority"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.bayancenter.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/The-illusion-of-victory.webp","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Y2nv-3lH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayancenter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayancenter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayancenter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayancenter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayancenter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayancenter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12880,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayancenter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12877\/revisions\/12880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayancenter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayancenter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayancenter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayancenter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}