Iraq in crisis as it ditches old political consensus

War with Islamic State (IS, or Daesh) and the fiscal crisis caused by low oil prices have combined to undermine the political arrangements by which both federal Iraq and the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have been governed since the Saddam Hussein regime fell. New or invigorated strands of social and political opposition have targeted the massive corruption and mismanagement that have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars over the past decade. But it is far from certain whether Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi’s challenge to corruption and the sectarian quota system, or the Kurdish opposition’s attempts to limit the Barzani clan’s authoritarian rule in Erbil, will result in more accountable government.