Christian Communities in the Political Life of Modern Iraq

The article analyses the political participation of Iraqi Christian communities. In the context of the research, one explores the linguistic, historical and confessional factors that influenced the formation of Assyrian, Chaldean and Assyro-Chaldean political movements in the territory of Modern post-Ba’athist Iraq. In addition, the paper also investigates their connections with co-religionists from neighboring countries and distant diasporas. One may identify three main consolidating forces that protect the interests of the Assyrians, Chaldeans and other faiths: political parties, the Church and the militias. However, the research states that modern Iraqi Christian political parties fully reflect the situation within the national political system after the overthrow of the Baathist government by the US-led international coalition. There are complete imbalance of actions, inability to reach consensus and further fragmentation of the main forces capable of exerting political will into even smaller structural units.

Iraq, Nestorian Christianity, political parties, Assyrians, Chaldeans