Wracked in recent years by sectarian violence and economic collapse, Iraq has been enjoying a quiet resurgence this year even as its neighbors in the Middle East are striving to stave off economic meltdowns in the face of political unrest.

Iraq’s stock market surged nearly 25 percent in the first two months of the year, and a record $20 million of investment funds flooded into the country from the U.S., Europe and other Persian Gulf states, even as other Arab stock exchanges fell by a collective 15 percent.

Iraq’s economic renaissance began with little fanfare in December after the United Nations voted to recognize its newly formed government and lift long-standing sanctions against the country, said Kenneth Kuhn, president of Global Capital Investments, a Chicago investment firm that specializes in Iraqi stocks.

With some of the biggest untapped reserves of oil in the world, Iraq also is benefiting from the surge in oil prices to more than $100 a barrel on worries ignited by the Middle East unrest.

Despite an outbreak of street protests in February by Iraqis demanding better services and jobs, Mr. Kuhn said, the demonstrations were different from those in other countries because they were not aimed at unseating the democratically elected government.

Risks remain in the war-ravaged nation, Mr. Kuhn said, but he thinks Iraq is at the beginning of an economic revival that could make it a beacon of stability and prosperity after years of having the region’s most stricken and violence-wracked economy.

“It’s a market that’s at an historic bottom,” he said. “They’re not out of the woods yet by any means, but it could be like being in China and Brazil 20 years ago” for businesses and investors willing to go out on a limb and tap into Iraq’s potential growth.

Although memories of the years of war and violence linger, Iraq has several reasons for optimism, Mr. Kuhn said.

The U.S. and other Western powers, after spending hundreds of billions of dollars and sacrificing thousands of lives to liberate the country from dictator Saddam Hussein and establish a fledgling democracy, now want Iraq to succeed.

With violence down by 90 percent since 2007, the International Monetary Fund last month found that Iraq had achieved economic stability with declining inflation and projected that its economy would maintain superlative annual growth rates of more than 10 percent in coming years.

Marine veteran Clay Hunt had a tattoo on his arm that quoted Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien: "Not all those who wander are lost."

"I think he was a lot more philosophical about life than a lot of us are, but trying to search for some inner peace and the meaning of life, what was the most important thing," said his father, Stacy Hunt.

His son's quest ended last week when he took his own life at his Sugar Land apartment.

The 28-year-old had narrowly escaped death in Iraq four years ago, when a sniper's bullet missed his head by inches. But he wrestled with post-traumatic stress disorder and survivor's guilt over the deaths of four friends in his platoon who weren't so lucky.

"Two were lost in Iraq, and the other two were killed in Afghanistan," said his mother, Susan Selke. "When that last one in Afghanistan went down, it just undid him."

In many ways, Hunt's death is all too familiar: the haunted veteran consumed by a war he can't stop fighting.

Suicides among Texans younger than 35 who served in the military jumped from 47 in 2006 to 66 in 2009 — an increase of 40 percent, according to state records.
The problem seems increasingly intractable. Efforts by the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs to stop the alarming rise in military suicides nationwide through training and screening have had limited success.