MIDDLE EAST

7 domains mapped · Code: IQ

These are jurisdiction-specific research-progress records. They expose first moves, likely actors, and institutional infrastructure where mapped; they are not a claim that every country has a finished statutory memo for all 61 domains.

Canonical domain beta-W from Oil & Gas Extraction. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Iraq flares $2.5B+ worth of associated gas annually. Capturing and monetizing flared gas makes W computable — the flared gas represents pure waste visible from satellite (World Bank GGFR data).

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Firearms. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Iraq is saturated with tens of millions of uncontrolled small arms left from decades of war, militia armament, and a collapsed registration system, and the resulting armed violence, tribal feuds, and assassinations impose a welfare cost far larger than any private gain from the arms trade. Because most of these weapons are physical items already inside the country, a credible disarmament-for-cash program plus militia integration into formal forces can shrink the stock in ways a purely bilateral buyer-seller market never will.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Defense Procurement. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Iraq's defense and security budget has repeatedly been drained by ghost soldiers, inflated contracts, and weapons purchases that never materialized, with the most notorious case the 2014 collapse where tens of thousands of nonexistent troops were drawing salaries while real units were unequipped. These losses are accounting and oversight failures inside a single ministry, so open contracting and payroll biometrics can recover most of the leakage.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Water Privatization. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:As the Tigris and Euphrates shrink under upstream Turkish and Iranian damming, Iraq's degraded public water network pushes households and farms toward expensive private tanker trucks and unregulated wells, and the poorest pay the most for water of uncertain quality. The binding constraint is regional river-sharing plus crumbling public infrastructure, so the durable fix sits at the treaty level rather than inside any private vendor market.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Groundwater / Ogallala Aquifer. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:With surface flows falling, Iraqi farmers and towns drill ever-deeper unmetered wells, drawing down aquifers faster than they recharge and accelerating salinization that is already abandoning farmland across the south. Because almost all pumping is local and unregulated, well permitting and metering can re-couple private extraction to the shared aquifer's survival.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Cement (Calcination Floor). Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Iraq's reconstruction demand sustains a large domestic cement industry running on aging, high-emission kilns, and the air pollution and carbon load fall on the same cities the concrete rebuilds. Because the binding factor is kiln technology and fuel choice inside a finite set of plants, efficiency standards and fuel switching can cut the welfare cost without halting reconstruction.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Illicit Drug Trade. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Iraq has shifted from a transit corridor to a major consumption and trafficking market for captagon and crystal methamphetamine moving from the region, fueling addiction, corruption of border and police units, and militia financing. Because the networks rely on bribed checkpoints and laundered proceeds, vetting and follow-the-money enforcement can reduce the trade where pure interdiction has failed.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

© 2026 Erik Postnieks · Independent Researcher · Salt Lake City