The new update of 2014-2015 is, of course, the attack of ISIS. But this is rooted in recent history. It is the direct result of all the politics that came into Iraq with the occupation.

The new update of 2014-2015 is, of course, the attack of ISIS. But this is rooted in recent history. It is the direct result of all the politics that came into Iraq with the occupation.

When I was a student, I was dressed like a modern girl and I wore long shorts. That is part of the past. There is fear in the streets. You cannot go out in the streets. You are looked at as if you come from another age. If there are any militias on your street, they will tell you to go back home and dress decently. They could beat you up or punish you worse than that. Some of us who have grown up in Baghdad are used to wearing what we please and walking where we please.

The US empowered the Shi'a Islamic political groups and marginalised a big part of Iraq who were recognised as Sunni people. It was only to be expected that the next step would be for the sectarian religious dynamics to surface, for one religious group to be fighting another religious group.

The leading members of ISIS were either tortured in US military prisons or in the prisons of the Shi'a government which the Americans put in place.

Polygamy was not a problem in the '80s. I do not remember one single woman in Baghdad who was the second or third wife. Now it's a very common story. Sometimes two wives living with a man in a 5 by 10 foot room. It's a very miserable economic situation.

What has ISIS done to the women in the cities they have conquered? Direct enslavement, humiliation and turning women into concubines to be bought and sold. This was something nobody expected to see in Iraq.