Ali Uzri, an Iraqi technology consultant, has been waiting for his country to get on the information superhighway for a long time. “Near my house in Baghdad, there’s an Internet cafe called Dreamnet.iq,” says Uzri. “The sign has been up for over a year—even though for most of that time it was the .iq part that was just a dream.” That’s because, despite the fact that Iraq has been a sovereign nation for some 15 months, its top-level Internet domain, .iq, has been in a legal limbo.

     In 1997, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a quasi-independent body that oversees Internet domains worldwide, granted control of the country’s domain to a Texas-based Palestinian named Bayan Elashi. Elashi introduced the world’s first Arabic computer and founded three technology firms, one of which hosted hundreds of Web sites, including Al Jazeera’s. But, in 2002, Elashi was indicted for funneling money to Hamas and selling computer equipment to Libya and Syria. When he was sent to a Texas prison for those crimes, ICANN resumed control over the domain. In 2004, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, asked ICANN to free it up for the incoming Iraqi government, but the organization balked at handing it over, arguing Iraq was still too unstable. For months, ICANN refused to consider several requests by Iraq’s government for the domain’s return.

     But one Baghdad political insider says that the imbroglio is likely to end “imminently”—possibly by the time this magazine hits newsstands—with ICANN handing over .iq to the new government. It’s unclear why ICANN may reverse its earlier decision, whether it be from mounting political pressure or a different position on the legitimacy of the new Iraqi regime. The organization refused repeated requests for comment. But officials affiliated with the Iraqi government indicate they expect the domain’s return soon.

For Iraqis, that’s welcome news. Voice over Internet protocol systems that provide free telephony, a coming network of ATMs, and a desperate desire on the part of average Iraqis to connect with the outside world are already driving millions of dollars of quiet investment into the country’s Internet sector. And Uzri says Iraqis will embrace the .iq domain. “Even some of my Kurdish friends are asking me when .iq will be available for them to use for their businesses,” he says. Like so much else in Iraq, the answer isn’t up to them.