The Republic of Iraq is a country in the Middle East, located within the historical region of Mesopotamia, and with Baghdad as its capital. Mesopotamia was a cradle of civilization during the 5000s BC, with the Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian empires emerging between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers before the Persians conquered the region in the mid-6th century BC. Mesopotamia fell under Achaemenid, Macedonian, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman, and Sassanid Persian rule before the Muslim conquest of Persia in the mid-7th century AD, after which Mesopotamia was Islamized and Arabized; Christian, Yazidi, Mandaeist, Yarsanist, and Zoroastrian minorities continue to exist. The city of Baghdad became the capital and largest city of the Abbasid Caliphate, becoming a world-class cultural and intellectual center, as well as home to the House of Wisdom. The Mongols sacked the city in 1258, causing the city's decline. Multiple successive empires came to rule over Iraq before the Ottoman Empire conquered the region in 1534; from 1704 to 1831, Iraq was ruled by Georgian Mamluks loyal to the Ottoman sultan, but Iraq remained under Ottoman rule until 1920, when the League of Nations granted the British Empire a mandate over the region following the Ottoman defeat in World War I. On 23 August 1921, King Faisal I of Iraq officially changed the name of the country from Mesopotamia to the Persian name Iraq, meaning "lowlands". British rule ended in 1932 as the Kingdom of Iraq became independent, but the monarchy was overthrown in 1958, replaced by a short-lived Iraqi Republic, and fell under the rule of the Arab nationalist and far-right Iraqi Ba'ath Party in 1968. The Ba'athists, led by Saddam Hussein, established a one-party state ruled by Saddam's family and close allies, and dominated by the country's Sunni Muslim minority. Shi'ites and Kurds alike were oppressed, and the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s led to the violent persecution of both minority groups and devastating losses for both Iraq and its Shi'ite neighbor, Iran. In 1990, Iraq's invasion of oil-rich Kuwait resulted in the Gulf War with an American-led UN coalition, and Iraq's rumored acquisition of weapons of mass destruction led to the 2003 US-British invasion of Iraq and the downfall of the Ba'athist regime. The installation of a Shi'ite and Kurdish-dominated government led to a years-long Sunni insurgency backed by al-Qaeda, while Iran encouraged a Shi'ite insurgency targeting foreign troops. The Iraq War came to an end for the United States in 2011 as all Western occupation forces withdrew from the country, but the insurgency escalated into an "Iraqi Civil War" in December 2013 as a coalition of Ba'athist and Sunni militias rose up against Nouri al-Maliki's repressive and sectarian Shi'ite government. The Islamic State caliphate seized control of most of northern and western Iraq and established Mosul as its capital, and an alliance of Iraqi government forces, Kurdish Peshmerga, Khomeinist militia groups, and international air support and special forces resulted in ISIL's defeat in 2017. The defeat of ISIL left a pro-Iranian regime in control of Iraq, with the Shi'ite Popular Mobilization Units holding great power in Iraqi politics. Iraq fell into the Iranian sphere of influence as a result of popular resentment towards both Sunni jihadism and the Western world, resulting in protests against Iranian hegemony in the late 2010s. By 2023, Iraq had a population of 43.5 million people; in 2015, 61% were Shia, 34% Sunni, and 5% Christian and other faiths.
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