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Ongoing sectarian and bureaucratic issues continue to hamper efforts at national reconciliation in Iraq, while the development of new ports has flared geopolitical tensions with Iran.

Thousands of mostly Sunni Iraqis are thought to have been extrajudicially killed by Baghdad-sanctioned but Tehran-controlled Shia militias during the fight against the Islamic State.

Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is part and parcel of the system that many Iraqis have called to reform or replace, with his appointment unlikely to resolve the root causes behind popular anger repeatedly flaring up over the past 19 years.

With support for the political process at an all-time low, the popular foundation of what constitutes an Iraqi democracy is now in peril and may be at risk of total collapse.

Five years after the defeat of the Islamic State, Iraq's government is ostracising over one million internally displaced Iraqis, predominantly Sunni Arabs, by ensuring they are denied formal identity papers.

Iraq’s political instability has escalated into deadly fighting between supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr and pro-Iran militias. But the violence is far from unprecedented, and historical patterns suggest an imminent Iranian intervention.

With the Shia cleric raising doubts over the legality of the elections he himself had won, there are signs that disparate political forces are manoeuvring to seal a deal that will finally see a government formed.

Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has continued to forge ahead with his ambitions of being the power behind Iraq's major political institutions, sowing chaos in the country until his demands are met.

In a severely turbulent political environment, a newly leaked set of audio recordings of former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki insulting prominent leaders and inciting sectarian divisions threatens to destabilise Iraq even further.

After failing to build a majority coalition, Sadr's mass resignation 'protest' move against systemic corruption will achieve little more than the further delegitimisation of Iraq's political processes.