This comparative article analyses the collapse of societies in three empires: the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, and modern Iraq, and where the collapse of modern Iraq fits in the story. Iraq is the twentieth-century name for ancient Mesopotamia, more commonly known as the land between two rivers- the Tigris and the Euphrates. Or better known as the Cradle of Civilisation. This article seeks to answer the central comparative question: How and why do complex, bureaucratically advanced societies collapse, and what distinctive factors shaped the trajectory and aftermath of state collapse in Iraq compared to Rome and Byzantium? By setting these cases side by side, I aim to reveal both recurring structural patterns—such as the decay of central authority, fiscal crisis, and social fragmentation—and the particular dynamics that gave Iraq’s recent collapse its unique place in this broader narrative. After I set the stage, I go on to focus on the collapse of Iraqi society after the 2003 invasion by United States forces, and the reasons for non-resistance from any kind of Iraqi institutions. In consequence, a regressive transformation of Iraqi society crushed the middle class and created an artificial humanitarian disaster.
At its peak around AD 117, during the reign of Emperor Trajan, the Roman Empire covered about 5 million square kilometres across three continents and held a population of roughly 60 to 70 million people plus around 150 to 200 million slaves. It was the beating heart of Europe. Its Bureaucracy was a lean, adaptive administrative system that maintained order and collected taxes throughout vast Mediterranean territories, requiring 35,000 people to run and holding the empire together. In contrast, the EU Commission employs about 32,000 people today.
At its peak, the Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire) was characterised by its massive territorial expansion, monumental architectural achievements, and economic hegemony over the Mediterranean world.
In modern Iraq, history must be viewed through the lens of its most powerful native-centred power, the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258 CE), alongside its ancient predecessors: the Sumer Empire, which developed the world's first urban centres, writing system, and centralised government between the 5th and 3rd millennia BCE; the Akkadian Empire under Sargon around 2,334 BCE; the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–609 BCE); the Babylonian Empire and its Hanging Garden. Not forgetting, of course, the laws of Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar established the foundation for justice and equity, all originating in that land between the two rivers. Modern Iraq reached its socio-economic zenith during the "Golden Era" of 1973 to 1979. Driven by the nationalisation of oil and a massive influx of petroleum revenue, the country transformed into a complex society and one of the most advanced economies in the Arab world.
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So what went wrong? When an economy breaks down, we call it an economic collapse. When a large number of people die, we call it a population collapse. When power systems crumble together in a relatively rapid and enduring manner, we call it a societal collapse. Societal collapse defined the history of Rome and Byzantium, while 20 years after its collapse, the fray of Iraqi society is still ongoing; its society has yet to shape its future, and its collapse is still to be defined. Its present is an extension of the past half century.
If you ever visit Rome and wander through the Colosseum, you will be struck with a feeling that nothing lasts forever. You will be surrounded by the marble skeletons of the Colosseum, a symbol of one of the most powerful and complex ancient European societies, when it had all of Europe under its grasp. Now reduced to ruin and rubble, a haunting tribute to the people who lived there. Visiting Istanbul tells the same story of Constantinople. Following the Ottoman invasion in 1453 led by Sultan Mehmed II, the population fragmented. In central Iraq, about 55 miles south of Baghdad, near the modern city of Hillah, you can find the remains of the once-mighty city of Babylon. How did these proud and powerful empires crumble? How did these honorific civilisations and complex societies collapse?
In this essay, I will examine the sequence, causes, and after-effects of the collapse of these three civilisations, concentrating on Iraq, but first I define what is meant by the collapse of Complex societies. A society can be said to collapse when it goes through a rapid and considerable loss of an established level of socio-political complexity. It stems from the destruction and decay of social organisations and institutions; often the reasons are a mixture of factors such as Climate change, drought and invasions. A complex society, by contrast, has much more specialisation and centralised control. All three societies I refer to here shared these qualities to some degree. The loss of social complexity also comes in degrees. I would also add that complex societies are often defined by profound inequality and hierarchy, and that certainly was the case in Iraq.
Disintegration and deliberate acts of State destruction led to the catastrophic Collapse of a complex, sophisticated, highly educated society.
My last paragraph captures many important details, which I try to unpack, quantify, and qualify in some order as I go. Rome suffered from extensive tax evasion by the elite, shifting the entire fiscal burden onto the peasantry. Over time, its currency plummeted by 90%. In Rome’s eastern empire, the financial exhaustion from the 26-year war with the Sasanian Empire left the treasury empty on the eve of the Arab conquests. Not helped, of course, by the 1204 sack of the city by the Crusaders. Constantinople’s revenue dropped by 90%, leaving the state unable to fund its standing army. Ba'athist Iraq suffered a similar fate. UN sanctions froze imports, halted infrastructure repair, and forced reliance on the UN oil-for-food rationing system. Per capita GDP crashed from $10,300 in 1980 to under $1,000 by the late 1990’s. The Iraqi Dinar devalued from $3.20 USD per 1 ID to 2,500 ID per $1 USD by 2002. In all three cases, economic ruin left all three states physically incapable of maintaining basic civil functions.
Though separated by centuries, the Western Roman Empire of the fifth century, the Byzantine Empire before its final fall, and Ba’athist Iraq leading up to the 2003 Anglo-American invasion all offer stark illustrations of states thoroughly hollowed out internally long before their final external catalysts of collapse. Far from sudden, unpredictable military defeats, each of these civilisations suffered a prolonged, multi-decade unravelling characterised by fiscal ruin, the systematic degradation of central military authority, and deep socio-political fracturing and continuous regime change through repeated revolutions. Having set the comparative stage, allow me now to zoom in on the gradual collapse and the final onslaught that led to the disintegration of Iraq’s society.
The framework supporting Iraq's institutional infrastructure had been weakening since the 1958 anti-royalist revolution. A bloody military coup led by Brigadier General Abd al-Karim Qasim overthrew the Hashemite monarchy. The Outcome resulted in the killing of King Faisal II and Prime Minister Nuri al-Said. Iraq was declared a republic, ending British imperial influence. That was followed by the Ba'athist violent coup of 1963, only to see its demise in a power-sharing arrangement between a nationalist president and a Ba'athist prime minister.
That arrangement was short-lived, followed by yet another coup that saw Saddam in jail for his political infighting. In July 1968, another revolution followed, this time with the Ba'athists securing total control under Al-Bakr's leadership. Having escaped from prison in 1966, villainous, power-hungry Saddam played a critical operational role in the coup. He was appointed Vice President and head of the internal security apparatus.
The crescent paired with a star is the cultural symbol of Islam
Throughout the 1970s, Machiavellian and scheming Saddam Hussein built a powerful police state and effectively ruled from behind the throne as the ageing President al-Bakr's health declined. On July 16, 1979, the final transition came when Saddam forced al-Bakr to resign under the pretext of ill health and officially assumed the presidency. Six days later came the infamous purge. On July 22, Saddam convened a Ba'ath Party assembly and falsely denounced dozens of senior party members as traitors. Sixty-eight people were arrested, and 22 were executed, cementing Saddam's absolute, unchallenged dictatorship over Iraq. Hanging on to Power and control by violence was the default direction for the next 35 years. He hollowed out the Regular Army of most of its generals to prevent military coups, starving them of funding while funnelling resources to the loyalist Republican Guard. As we shall see, even those deserted him, finding the cost of his defence too high, which also marked the final collapse of the hierarchical structure.
The chronological order of collapse is clear. At every phase of this chronology, dislocation of Iraqi people continued unabated. An estimated thousands of people emigrated to the regional centres of the Arab world, as well as further afield to Europe, the USA, and Australia. The year 1958 is a major milestone in the collapse of Iraqi society and the ensuing diaspora. Democracy at this time, tentative as it may have been, still offered exit options; many in the cultured middle class among royal sympathisers grew suspicious of the violent political direction of travel, became extremely vulnerable, and left. That was the first wave of the breakdown. It remains debatable, however, whether the Jewish exodus of 120,000 people, made up of scholars, bankers, and other intellectuals in the early fifties, triggered the fragmentation.
Nevertheless, the blueprint of disintegration was continuously and effectively drawn amid mayhem and disorder. Baghdad and major regional hubs experienced localised chaos, political purges, and flight during the rapid succession of coups, including the Kurdish war (1961), the Ramadan Revolution (1963), and the 17 July Revolution (1968). On top of this, ethnic conflict and political migrations in the rural and northern areas caused the displacement of around 600,000 individuals over the course of the 1960 to 1975 period.
The degrees of hollowness continue to instil fear, uncertainty, disillusionment, and loss of confidence in the government led by Saddam Hussein, who proved to be a highly predatory individual using military aggression, territorial acquisition and economic coercion to exploit weaker neighbours. His ideas of ‘War makes State and States make War’ were deeply entrenched. In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, leading to a brutal eight-year war of attrition during its eight-year span. He thought he could exploit the chaos of the 1979 Iranian Revolution to capture the oil-rich Khuzestan province. It ended in a stalemate with massive casualties generally ranging between 100,000 and 500,000, with over 300,000 wounded and devastating economic costs for Iraq, $352 billion to $561 billion. Iraq entered the war with an estimated $35 billion in foreign exchange reserves, but finished it owing between $50 billion and $80 billion in external debt, largely to neighbouring Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
On the heels of the final stages of the Iran-Iraq War, the Iraqi regime launched a systematic, genocidal campaign against the Kurdish population in northern Iraq. In the period of 1987–1989, Saddam decided to attack the Kurds (Al-Anfal Campaign). The drive targeted rural Kurds because its purpose was to eliminate Kurdish rebel groups and Arabize strategic parts of the Kirkuk Governorate of Northern Iraq. The Ba'athist regime committed atrocities against the local Kurdish population, mostly civilians. This included the infamous chemical weapons attack on the town of Halabja in March 1988. Both atrocities combined resulted in an estimated 50,000 to 182,000 Kurdish deaths. Between 2,000 and 4,500 Kurdish villages, along with dozens of towns, administrative centres, schools, and mosques, were completely razed. This was a clear strain on the cohesiveness of Iraq's ethnic and cultural diversity.
In 1990 came the Gulf War- Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990; many would argue for reasons due largely to carrying the burden following the crushing financial crisis and inability to repay Gulf lenders like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In addition, I would, however, ascribe to Hussein's Ba'athist ideology of Pan-Arabism. See below for more on Ba'athist Socialist ideology. The imposition of such entrenched ideology was centre stage, as was seen in his attempts to Arabise the ethnically distinct Kurds. In response, a US-led international coalition launched Operation Desert Storm in January 1991, successfully expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait by February. The estimated cost to Iraq was $50 billion plus reparations, as well as the international damage resulting from the war.
Comprehensive economic sanctions between 1990–2003 took hold immediately after the invasion of Kuwait. The United Nations Security Council imposed near-total financial and trade sanctions on Iraq. These sanctions remained in place for over a decade, severely crippling the Iraqi economy and bringing about widespread humanitarian hardship. People were forced to sell their possessions to buy basic necessities. Modest relief came through the Oil-for-Food Programme in 1995, which ended with the US-led invasion in 2003. To alleviate the humanitarian suffering caused by the sanctions, the UN established this program in 1995 (becoming operational in 1996). It allowed Iraq to sell a limited amount of oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian necessities. A dark chapter of a dying nation with no country able or willing to offer a lifeline or impelled to take action against such cruelty.
What followed was a sad chapter: the sinking of a society within the web of the Dark Triad - Machiavellianism, money laundering, manipulation, self-interest, skullduggery, and fostering resilient domestic black markets for survival. We see a fluid society, with some branches transforming, no longer constrained by traditional morality and rigidity.
Because Iraq is a Rentier state, relying on oil for 90% of its income, it was vulnerable to external shocks, which instantly squeezed the economy. Conduits of smuggling routes were put in place between Baghdad and to and fro Amman, Dubai, Turkey, Syria, Iran and the Kurdish territories (Erbil) in collaboration with foreign companies. The Jordan-by-truck pipeline was the main corridor for smuggling machinery spare parts, minimising the emerging local cannibalism of machinery. A network of well-organised multi-layered supply chains supplied items from toothpaste to highly profitable electronics. Iraqi oil was trucked into Jordan, and goods of all description were shipped back, valued at around $300 million annually- all state-sponsored, placing surcharges and kickbacks to state gatekeepers, none other than the Goliath, Saddam Hussein and his two sons, Udai and Qusay, charging highly inflated prices to Iraqi people in need. Across a range of competing people seeking status through market dominance, dark-triad corruption was widespread, with one group exploiting the rest. This was the collateral damage of state collapse.
See below for a brief look at the mechanism installed to show how this, and the highly profitable and highly specialised clandestine ‘Hawala’ operation, functioned. Privateers who worked this ingenious system, those hardwired to make money and get away with it, give the word ‘savvy’ a new dimension.
The US-led invasion of Iraq occurred immediately after these events, beginning on 20 March 2003. This military campaign resulted in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime and officially brought an end to both the comprehensive UN economic sanctions and the Oil-for-Food Programme that same year. By then, the law of diminishing returns applied to a society hollowed out by continuous state violations and offered no benefit to its citizens; the invisible social contract was at an end; hence, the institutions of all kinds offered no resistance to the invasion of coalition forces, ending in the total collapse of the framework holding the Iraqi society together.
The swift destruction of Iraq’s state apparatus unleashed suppressed sectarian rivalries and collapsed the centralised rationing network, sparking immediate internal and external refugee crises. The post-2003 chaos resulted in the displacement of over 4.7 million Iraqis—approximately 2 million fleeing to neighbouring countries (Syria, Jordan) and 2.7 million internally displaced, fundamentally uprooting nearly 15% to 20% of the total population. The ultimate legacy of state collapse lies not in altered borders but in forced migration and the demographic shattering of the civilian populace. The United Nations sanctions regime against Ba'athist Iraq—established under UN Security Council Resolution 661 in August 1990—is widely documented as one of the most comprehensive and punitive economic blockades in modern history. The specific legal mechanisms, bureaucratic terms, and catastrophic human impacts of this embargo methodically dismantled Iraqi civil society and engineered the structural collapse that preceded the 2003 invasion.
The 2003 final onslaught was labelled by the allied forces as shock and awe. Dismantling the Iraqi military and stripping down what remained of a highly centralised state that managed complex electrical grids, water treatment and public health systems meant they all suddenly ceased to function, leaving millions without basic services. Saddam Hussein's hollowing out of Civic institutions created a power vacuum. It precipitated an abrupt institutional collapse by removing centralised authority, instantly fracturing a fragile society and forcing it to look inward for resilience. Tribal and local governance became the alternative, taking over law enforcement and managing water and fuel distribution. As with the Byzantines, religious organisations also provided safety nets, medical care, and security.
Beyond the risk of such romanticism, a human tragedy was unfolding: the destruction of Iraq’s social fabric, the rise of virulent sectarianism and a massive exodus of its people. Such dislocation was not only an exercise in adaptation, but an existential crisis defined by violence, fragmentation, and flight.
The Arabic writing 'Al-Ta'ifia'
The Muhasasa system (Ta'ifia), the coalition forces put in place, moulded the landscape of sectarianism and internal segregation and the remapping of Baghdad. This ethno-sectarian political system forced citizens to rely on sectarian political entrepreneurs and militias for basic physical and economic survival. This caused sectarian polarisation, which built into civil war from 2006 to 2008. Sunnis fled to Sunni-dominated western Baghdad (Al-Hurriya) while Shiites moved to eastern strongholds (Al-Dora). The US military accelerated this separation by constructing massive concrete blast walls to seal off violently contested areas-intercommunal unmixing. By then, the Tigris River had gained another chapter within its once-illustrious history. It became a separating border between the Al-adhamiya (Sunni) and Kadhimiya (Shia). This resulted in millions of internal displacements, forcing Iraq’s important asset, its moneyed middle class, its human capital, into exile - The ‘Brain drain' and the collapse of the highly educated Middle Class. It is estimated that between 3,000 and 17,000 Iraqi doctors fled the country. The erasure of non-Muslim minorities, including Christians, lacking tribal militias for protection, suffered targeted campaigns of terror. These domestic impacts triggered a catastrophic chain reaction that changed the domestic landscape and cultural structure, and led to a steep decline in public health and literacy rates.
Comparing the collapse of post-2003 Iraq to the fall of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires reveals striking architectural similarities spanning two millennia. In all three cases, a rapid disintegration of a highly sophisticated, centralised state forced ordinary citizens to rely on immediate, localised survival networks. The main differences, as I have tried to analyse, lie in the speed and cause of the collapse. All three resulted in a power vacuum. Central authority vanished. Citizens in Rome eventually moved toward feudalism; in Byzantium, to the Millet system; and in Iraq, to Sectarian-Tribal Fragmentation and, of course, exile. This chapter proves that people will always sacrifice institutional liberty and national identity for the immediate reality of survival. In exchange for physical safety, the diasporic Iraqi society faced and still faces painful friction: having lost their identity and class, they attempt to integrate into their chosen new host communities as marginalised foreigners. Doctors and intellectuals faced with unrecognised degrees in their chosen host countries suffer mental pain and anguish, overcoming discrimination while reshaping their identities. Many in the diaspora faced barriers to survival as they tried to participate in their new society; for some, without economic help and a family to support, this meant losing dignity and self-worth. Against all odds, though, adapting to the new surroundings and shifting their mindset to the new culture became the final means of survival.
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Look out for my next essay: The hollowing out continues, so does the exodus. The internal dynamics of the trapped society left behind, the Tishreen movement and the fragmentation of diasporic transnationalism.
Sanction Busting- Its Mechanism
Institutionalised Bribery, backhanders and illicit smuggling
Sanction busting for some who lack empathy or feeling was an opportunity to get rich and for the rich to get super rich, on the back of people who were struggling to survive.
Comprehensive trade Sanctions were a painful stranglehold on the Iraqi nation, sanctioned by the United Nations, imposed on it by the United States and regulated by the banking powerhouse of the US.
The measures taken were deeply cruel and inhumane to innocent civilians. It led to starvation, chronic child malnutrition, and other severe health conditions. It is estimated that at least two million people died as a result. It lasted from 1990 until the United States invasion in 2003. By then, the Iraqi economy lay in tatters, and its desperate citizens were completely demoralised. They struggled to survive under the strain of deteriorating living conditions, inflation, food shortages, and a lack of medicines.
Against such odds, life goes on for some. An Iraqi trader might set up a front company in Amman or partner with a Jordanian merchant. They would purchase parts, for example, European, American or Japanese electronics legally on the open market. After offloading in duty-free zones, smugglers would strip the manufacturing labels and serial numbers off the parts to conceal their origin.
There is also the ‘sandwiching’ method where prohibited spare parts were buried deep into the centre of large flatbed trucks, completely ‘sandwiched’ by layers of permitted humanitarian goods. The person buying the spare parts in Baghdad, such as mechanical and car components, or ‘dual-use products', never knows who drove the truck across the border. If authorities arrest the driver, they can compromise the rest of the supply chain. A similar setup is taking place in northern Iraq in the Kurdish areas of Kirkuk and Erbil, as well as the Southern Fou marshland area (the Meshouf) for smuggling operations to Dubai using dhows.
Physical goods cannot move without money moving in the opposite direction. Since Iraq is cut off from the global banking system, traders rely on informal money systems like Hawala. The buyer in Baghdad hands cash to a local Hawala broker who contacts an affiliated broker, say in Amman or Dubai; the Amman broker pays out the equivalent amount to the exporter. The system runs entirely on trust. The ledgers are balanced by trade, like oil for Amman or gold for Dubai, to settle the debt.
Those who went on to become billionaires from such a prolonged system, and many did, were often described as Psycopaths.
The Ba'ath Party of Iraq
The Ba'ath Party under Saddam Hussein adhered to a highly specific, idiosyncratic ideology known as Arab Socialism (Al-Ishtirakiyah al-Arabiyah). While it shared structural traits with Marxist-Leninist regimes, its core philosophy was fundamentally distinct from—and explicitly opposed to—Soviet communism or Western democratic socialism.
At its heart, Ba'athist socialism was not a scientific economic theory designed to empower the global proletariat; instead, it was a nationalistic tool designed to achieve Arab unity, state-led modernisation, and absolute political control. Arab nationalism is an article of faith. It stood in opposition to orthodox Marxist socialism, which holds that the fundamental driving force of history is class struggle (the working class overthrowing the bourgeoisie). Ba'athism rejected this completely.
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