Giving Compass' Take:

• Ariane M. Tabatabai and Jeffrey Martini report on the recent protests in Iraq, and how the protesters have identified real problems with their own ruling elites.

• How can Iraq help its economic growth? What are other ways the protesters are getting their message across?   

• Here's an article on the successes and failures in reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

As protests in Iraq grow, a “good news” narrative seems to be developing with them. The protests, this story goes, are a significant blow to Iranian influence, demonstrating that the Iraqi public is tired of Tehran's interference in its country's affairs. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said as much in a recent tweet. Evidence cited for this argument includes the fact that Iranian-backed Shiite militias have been implicated in violence against protesters and that the demonstrators' slogans include “Iran out, out.” Iran, in other words, could feel some blowback when the demonstrations culminate in a reckoning.

Although appealing to Americans, whose blood and treasure has only resulted in increased Iranian influence in Iraq after a decade and a half of war, this narrative is faulty. It is the product of seeing events through a single lens: U.S.-Iranian competition in the Middle East. To be sure, after tacit alignment in the fight against the Islamic State over the past five years, the United States and Iran have once again entered an era of competition in Iraq. But the bigger story is not who is up and who is down between Washington and Tehran; it is that yet another Arab public has taken to the streets demanding change.

Read the full article about the Iraqi protests by Ariane M. Tabatabai and Jeffrey Martini at RAND Corporation.