“See, we don’t need to go to Dubai anymore because Dubai came to us,” remarked Maryam, a 28-year-old graphic designer. She was seated with friends at Em Sherif, a high-end Lebanese eatery. Among those at the restaurant were the sons and daughters of politicians and businessmen — “the power brokers, money launderers and gangster aristocrats of Baghdad,” as one opposition politician sitting nearby put it to me.