ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains why and how Iraq became a federal state. It addresses the state-building and national integration processes of the modern state of Iraq in 1921, which were based on flawed pillars that complicated the state and contributed to its instability. The book also develops the main argument about the novelty of the Iraqi Federation and the inadequacy of the classic factors of the origin and formation of federations to explain how and why Iraq became a federation. It also identifies the current socio-economic and political realities of twenty-first-century Iraq and those objective, observable conditions, specific to Iraq that can be found in classic federal theory. The book also provides an explanation of 'how' Iraq became a federal state, by investigating the embedding of Riker's federal bargain in the new political process, which developed into a federal bargain.
