The love of horsepower is a universally-acknowledged human condition, and people from nearly every corner of the world have been drawn to powerful and fun sports cars. This includes the people of Iraq, whom we introduced to democracy over a decade ago. Today Iraq is arguably a much better place, especially in terms of available automobiles. The Dodge Charger is even fondly referred to as “the Obama.”

We would rather talk to you about this Ford Mustang GT, which somehow snuck into Iraq and proceeded to put on a smoky show for the locals. This is not something that we see everyday in from Iraq, let alone something that gets through the filter of most mainstream news organizations, let alone is on their radar.

For many decades under Saddam Hussein’s rule, only Baathist party members could import a high-dollar car like the Mustang. Today is a different story, the market for auto imports has opened up in Iraq, a country of 27 million with new-found access to the nation’s oil wealth. While Ford doesn’t technically sell the Mustang in the Middle East, anyone with the right connections can get access to almost any car they want.

The driver put on quite the show for a crowd of gathered (and rather fearless) onlookers who formed a circle around the 5.0, we’ll file this under the “don’t try this at home” label. Meanwhile the idiot riding shotgun decided to hang out of the car because hey, it looks cool (also not recommended by us). Many Middle Easterners love their sports cars, and we’ve seen lots of wild videos from countries like Saudi Arabia . We’re wondering about the car scene in the Middle East, it certainly appears to be growing daily, and we hope that Detroit muscle continues to be popular there.