The New York Times reports: Iraqis seeking to withdraw money from banks are told there is not enough cash. Hospitals in Baghdad are falling back to the deprivation of the 1990s sanctions era, resterilizing, over and over, needles and other medical products meant for one-time use.

In the autonomous Kurdish region in the north, the economic crisis is even worse: government workers — and the pesh merga fighters who are battling the Islamic State — have not been paid in months. Already, there have been strikes and protests that have turned violent.

These scenes present a portrait of a country in the midst of an expensive war against the Islamic State that is now facing economic calamity brought on by the collapse in the price of oil, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the Iraqi government’s revenue.

Analysts and officials, though, say much tougher economic times are ahead, even as they insist the war will be largely unaffected because of help from foreign powers determined to defeat the Islamic State. The United States, for instance, recently extended new loans to Iraq to buy weapons, and other countries are stepping up with donations of arms and ammunition. [Continue reading…]