Rebuilding After War And Why Iraq Can't Keep The Lights On

By Ken Silverstein, Senior Contributor. Ken Silverstein covers global energy and climate issues.


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Nov 16, 2025

I recently appeared on Cross Lines, a televised current-affairs program on Al-Ahad TV (Iraq), hosted by Bayraq Faisal Ghazi, to discuss why Iraq—after spending tens of billions of dollars—still cannot deliver reliable electricity to its citizens. It’s a question that goes beyond Iraq’s borders. It highlights how nations emerging from war and instability struggle to rebuild even the most basic infrastructure, despite possessing vast natural and financial resources.

Iraq’s electricity crisis is not just a story of technical failure—it’s a story of mismatched expectations. U.S.-based General Electric vowed to restore megawatts. Germany’s Siemens promised to help build a nation. But both ran headlong into the same systemic roadblocks: instability, bureaucracy, and political fragmentation that no foreign contractor—however capable—can fix alone.

“Every time we think we’re getting close to fixing the grid, politics pulls the plug,” said Mahmoud Abbas, an electrical engineer and expert at the Iraqi Electricity Ministry, in a story printed by The Media Line.

After the 2003 U.S. invasion, Iraq’s power infrastructure lay in ruins. Transmission lines were destroyed, substations looted, and generation plants bombed. Foreign contractors stepped into this vacuum—each with a distinct approach to rebuilding the grid. The government has since spent an estimated $100 billion on generation, transmission, and distribution projects, yet blackouts remain a daily reality.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2025/11/16/rebuilding-after-war-and-why-iraq-cant-keep-the-lights-on/