Democracy Without A Middle Class

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That's one definition of Iraq by Alisa Roth and Hugh Eakin. Their definition stems from the reality of the Iraqi refugees scattered primarily around the Middle East. Fundamentally, many of these refugees were of the educated middle class. While we thought that overthrowing Sadaam would lead to the return of many expatriate Iraqis, that just did not happen. In fact, the reverse seems to have happened in that 20% of Iraq's pre-war population has left the country. The 5,000,000 that have left is the largest number of displaced persons in the Middle East since 1948. And it looks as though there will be severe long term implications as many of these 5,000,000 are families.

The diaspora continues; in March 866 Christian families were driven out of Mosul by Islamic militants.