For more than three years, Iraq has managed to stay out of the headlines. Wars and insurrections have afflicted other parts of the Middle East, but Baghdad—a city whose name was once synonymous with suicide bombings and sectarian murder—has been spared. The highway from the capital’s international airport was known as the world’s most dangerous during the years I lived there, after the 2003 invasion by the United States; now it’s lined with skyscrapers and high-rise apartment towers. Newly built bridges and overpasses have started to ease the city’s notorious traffic.

But many Iraqis have told me they fear that the calm will not last. Iran has taken a beating from both the United States and Israel over the past year, and its vaunted “Axis of Resistance” lies in ruins. Iraq finds itself in

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