Heading west from Baghdad, the capital’s bumpy roads turn into a well-lit, smoothly paved three-lane highway rarely seen in Iraq. Every so often, billboards adorned with slick pictures of Mohammed al-Halbousi credit Iraq’s recently deposed speaker of parliament with the reconstruction of Anbar, his home province.
“Halbousi restored the prestige of the Sunnis and of the province,” said Hamed Albu Alwan, a tribal elder who supports him. Outside the entrance to his spacious diwan (where tribal gatherings take place) in…
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