I'd love for someone to try and explain just what it is about "northern Iraq" that makes it possible to dismiss dérailleurs, which have been refined and field proven in the most demanding conditions for more than 100 years (and nearly 80 years in it's current basic form), as unreliable baubles? What is it about riding paved roads in that place that causes bottom brackets to tremble, cables to fray, and aluminum to crumple?

You know what I think? I think it's great the OP's question has fired people's imaginations and interests. However, we've got to separate those colorful fantasies of what it would be like to cycle in northern Iraq from the reality of doing it, so we can be helpful to the OP.

Exhibit A is a guy named Gören Kropp. Back in 1996 (back when derailleurs were a tender 60 hears old), Goren not only rode self-supported from Sweden to Nepal to do a successful, unsupported, solo summit of Everest, he rode all the way back, spending a year out on the road-- and off-road-- through terrain I can assure you was more demanding than what the OP is talking about. In '99, I met guys riding the Annapurna circuit in Nepal on front suspension MTBs, days up in the Himalaya from where the road ends.

Anyway, take a look at Goren's bike, read his story, and think hard about what that means for this thread.