I am not an expert on anything outside of my academic field of expertise so I am weighing in on this as an average Baghdadi citizen: I feel like PM MK has two opposing angels on his shoulders. The angel on his right shoulder is the experts & the angel on his left is the people. https://twitter.com/HamzehKarkhi/status/1302054717821005826

The experts rightfully recommend radical economic & political reforms across all state institutions & public sector facilities. Those reforms would definitely guarantee a better future for Iraq & its people in the long run but have the potential to cause severe short-term pains.

The people though, they are beyond exhausted & they have had more than enough.
They argue that they should not have to tolerate the negative consequences of any reforms/austerity measures because why should they when the rotten political class have enriched themselves to the max?

The question is; does PM MK have the required popular authorisation to go ahead with these radical reforms? His government came about after a popular uprising brought down his predecessor. I think that it is safe to say that the current parliament has NO credibility among Iraqis.

Iraqis say that they want PM MK to implement "real" reforms, but do they realise that such reforms might actually affect them negatively for quite a while & are they ready to tolerate that or woul they revolt against PM MK's government?

Are PM MK & his government on the other hand serious about implementing reforms or are they just good at pretending that they are? PM MK thinks that he can have his cake & eat it too, appease both the people & the political class. That ain't possible!

In order for a government to be able to implement real reforms it needs a massive popular mandate & that is not the case with this government. "Hopefully" next year's general elections will produce a government that will have the required popular mandate to go ahead with reforms.

Iraqis must also show their seriousness re working towards a "better Iraq", they must make their peace with the fact that any genuine reforms would require them to sacrifice & accept the bitter short-term consequences as the current situation is not sustainable by any means.