When Britain first occupied Iraq in 1918, the relationship that formed between them was defined by control, exploitation, and the gradual erosion of personal autonomy. Britain did not treat Iraq as someone whose wishes mattered. Instead, she viewed him as something to be shaped into whatever best suited her interests. From the moment he was forced into the role of representing the territory under British authority, Iraq's life became increasingly dictated by someone else's expectations. Living under constant supervision and interference taught him to become defensive, argumentative, and increasingly resistant to authority.
One of the ways Britain exerted control over Iraq was through his appearance and identity. Aware of his masculine tendencies from an early age, she repeatedly used them against him. At times she forced him into orientalist dresses and feminine presentation, knowing it embarrassed and upset him. When that approach ceased to be effective, she shifted tactics entirely. Rather than denying his masculinity, she weaponized it. Britain would make comments such as "if you want to act like a man so badly, then be one" or "let me show you how to be a man." These statements were never intended to support him. Instead, they became another method of crossing boundaries and asserting dominance over him psychologically, physically, and on rare occasions sexually.
As a result, Iraq developed a complicated relationship with authority. It was not masculinity itself that became associated with discomfort, but the experience of having his identity constantly controlled by someone else. Whether Britain treated him as a woman or attempted to force her own version of manhood onto him, the underlying message remained the same: his choices did not belong to him.
The first major fracture in Iraq's life came during the 1920 Iraqi Revolt. Secretly sympathetic to revolutionary groups, he provided support to those resisting British rule. The revolt itself was devastating. British bombardments left him with lasting physical injuries, and when his involvement was discovered, he was arrested and imprisoned. This period fundamentally changed how he viewed Britain. Until then, some part of him had believed that his position under her authority offered a degree of protection. The revolt destroyed that illusion completely. For the first time, Iraq understood that Britain considered him disposable.
Although he survived imprisonment, the experience left lasting emotional consequences. He became more confrontational, more stubborn, and increasingly unwilling to trust those who claimed to know what was best for him. Much of the optimism that had defined his childhood became buried beneath anger and frustration.
The following decades brought political instability, shifting governments, and growing tension, but the most significant turning point in Iraq's life came during the 1958 Revolution. As the monarchy collapsed, Iraq found himself facing execution. In my AU, execution is considered a final governmental act carried out through forced blood loss in a controlled environment, making survival nearly impossible). Iraq remains one of the only known anomalies to escape such a fate.
His survival came at a cost. Realizing that his former identity would inevitably be hunted down and killed if discovered, Iraq abandoned it entirely, thus transitioning. During his escape he stabbed one of his own eyes in order to remove the identifying symbol contained within it. The injury permanently damaged his vision and left him reliant on an eyepatch. The act was impulsive, carried out under extreme pressure, but it succeeded in making him far more difficult to identify.
From that moment onward, Iraq ceased to view his life as one continuous existence. Instead, he began mentally dividing his history into separate eras. The Colonial and Monarchy-era Iraq, the Republican Iraq, the Ba'athist Iraq, and the modern Iraq that exists today are all viewed as distinct versions of himself. He refers to all of them using the third person and recognizes them as parts of his own history, but rarely thinks of them as the same person. To him, each version represents a life that ended when the next one began.
The Ba'athist period became one of the most turbulent chapters of Iraq's life. During this era he grew increasingly impulsive, emotionally volatile, and aggressive. Unlike the anger he carried during colonization, which was largely directed outward, this period was marked by emotional instability and repeated escalation. Iraq became obsessed with appearing strong and refusing to back down. Admitting weakness felt impossible, even when doing so would have benefited him.
The Iran-Iraq War pushed these traits to their limits. Iraq entered the conflict driven by stubbornness and an overwhelming fear of appearing weak before the rest of the world. The war exhausted him physically and emotionally, but it never convinced him that he had been wrong to fight it. By the time it ended, he was deeply worn down yet remained unwilling to admit defeat.
The Gulf War shocked him in ways he had not anticipated. Iraq had grown accustomed to chaos and expected to survive whatever came next, but he never expected the international response to Kuwait. The scale of intervention caught him completely off guard. During the conflict, Kuwait inflicted a permanent scar across his chest. Although he survived the war, the experience left him increasingly frustrated and defensive.
The sanctions period that followed became one of the most emotionally draining eras of his life. Iraq grew irritable, impatient, and difficult to deal with. He remained convinced that many of his actions had been justified and became increasingly hostile toward criticism. During these years, one of the few meaningful relationships he developed was with Jordan. Their friendship originally began through economic cooperation, with Jordan approaching Iraq largely out of self-interest. Over time, however, the relationship deepened into genuine trust. Jordan eventually became one of the only people Iraq consistently spoke to during some of his most isolated years.
The final collapse of the Ba'athist era came with the 2003 invasion. During the conflict, America severed one of Iraq's legs with an axe, leaving him permanently disabled and forcing him to adapt to a prosthetic. Yet even this was not the true end of that chapter of his life. In Iraq's mind, the Ba'athist version of himself did not die during the invasion itself. That version died when Saddam Hussein was executed. For Iraq, that moment represented the definitive end of an era and the death of another version of himself.
The Iraq we know today emerged from these successive collapses carrying the memories of every previous life. Despite this, he rarely speaks about them openly. Most people remain unaware that the Colonial and Monarchy-era Iraq survived at all. Only Jordan knows the truth with certainty. Syria and Palestine have suspicions, but neither possesses enough evidence to confirm them.
Today, Iraq is energetic, demanding, stubborn, blunt and emotionally transparent compared to many of his peers. He rarely hides his feelings and is quick to express frustration when something upsets him. Beneath this outward intensity, however, lies a quieter desire that he struggles to articulate. After spending over a century enduring occupations, revolutions, wars, sanctions, and political collapse, Iraq wants stability more than anything else. The problem is that he has lived through so much chaos that he is no longer entirely sure what a normal life is supposed to look like.
