Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Iraq
Iraq's Teens Drowning in Hopelessness  (Arwa Damon)

Iraq’s Teens Drowning in Hopelessness (Arwa Damon)

Juan Cole 03/17/2013

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

CNN’s Arwa Damon reports from Baghdad on the sense of hopelessness among even upper-class Iraqi teens today.

AFP gives support to Ms. Damon’s findings: a 2011 poll of Iraqi men under 30 found that 89% of them wanted to emigrate from the country.

A more upbeat treatment by the Associated Press turns out to depend on an old 2009 opinion poll, which isn’t exactly good social science. Wasn’t that like 4 years ago? And even then 20% of Iraqi youth wanted to emigrate, which AP thinks is an optimistic sign! (Young women are less likely in Arab society to want to live abroad than young men, and if the 2009 sample included both sexes, that would help account for the difference with the 2011 poll. But also, things just aren’t getting better with regard to the political and security situation and basic services, and two years of more despair will change the poll numbers.)

Filed Under: Iraq, Iraq War

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Trump never saw a Wind Farm in China, but Beijing has half of all Installed Wind Capacity and will Eat America's Lunch in this Industry
  • Trumpism holds all Men are Created Unequal and most should be Denied Life, Liberty or the Pursuit of Happiness
  • Why China's Inaction on Palestine and Iran Weakens its Global Standing
  • The Trump Team's Purge of Pentagon Photos Raises Sinister Echoes from the Past
  • Israel continues to Starve, Target Gaza Civilians in ongoing Genocide

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved