A bridge over the Shatt al-Arab river, formed by the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. (Hussein Faleh/AFP via Getty Images)Iraq with governorate boundaries. Map by the United Nations. MER Article Two Decades of Uneven Federalism in Iraq Transforming the centralized Iraqi state into a federal state was one of the most pressing political goals for the engineers and so-called nation builders behind the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Proponents of federalism, like the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), saw it Hamzeh Hadad • 8 min read
