Iraq Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Iraq - Essay Example This paper seeks to assess the Iraqi nation in terms of its profile and politics. It seeks to assess how the nation can be improved applying the different theories in social and political sciences. It shall also present the problems and the social ills that Iraq is currently experiencing, how these came about, and possible ways of addressing these problems. It shall use primary resource materials in books and the latest online materials published. It shall mainly be a literature search of materials relevant to the topic at hand. This paper shall also relate these materials researched to previous textbooks used during class lectures. Iraq is an independent state located in the Middle East. The Republic of Iraq is bounded on the east by Iran, on the southeast by Kuwait and the Gulf, on the north by Turkey, on the southwest by Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and on the northwest by Syria. It is almost a landlocked state except for 56 kilometers of coastline that gives it access to the Gulf (Foreign & Commonwealth Office, 2007). It has distinct topographical regions: the uplands and the Kurdistan Mountains, the barren desert plains, and the irrigated farm lands of the Mesopotamia. Overall the economy of Iraq is bad. International economic sanctions have largely impoverished the country. About 16% of the economy comes from their agricultural sector. It is the world’s primary producer of dates. It has the second largest oil reserve in the world (Kjeilen, 2009). But with the United Nations sanctions still effective over the country, it remains a largely impoverished nation. The latest GDP data pegs the country at a 5. 9% real economic growth (Index Mundi, 2009). Life expectancy in Iraq became lower due to the advent of the war. The life expectancy for males is now 59 years old and for females, it is 57 years old. These figures dropped from 1990’s 66.5 life expectancy (Rosenberg, 2007). The Crude Birth rate for Iraq has also