Why are ethnicities more visible in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was overthrown?

Answer 1

In the days of Saddam Hussein, Saddam, himself a member of the political ba'ath sect of Sunni Islam, viciously suppressed any kind of individualism in his Iraq. He attacked Shias in the south and east and Kurds in the north and any Sunnis that disagreed with his ways, and held his country together with an iron fist. Following the fall of Saddam, the Shia struck back against the minority Sunni for Saddam's oppression, who struck back at the Shia, who struck back at the Sunni, and the whole time the Kurdish north is wanting their independence from a mostly Arab south (less so in Iraq, however, as the primary Kurdish beef is with Turkey, where most Kurds live and where independence is most deeply sought).