Iraq is broken. It’s broken because it was never fixed.
The US got into Iraq badly and from an Iraqi point of view they got out equally as badly. Getting out, though, was the right thing to do because by December 2011 the US had more than overstayed its welcome.
But while there is much that can be blamed on the US there is also just as much blame for the Iraqi politicians left in charge. They have proved themselves to be thoroughly incapable of building democratic, accountable institutions. Corruption is endemic.
And if that wasn’t bad enough this year has seen a huge increase in sectarian violence, much of it due to a campaign of bombings by al-Qaeda in Iraq. The United Nations estimates that more than 5,000 civilians have died this year alone.
This week the dangers of a rapid descent in Iraq towards another sectarian civil war was highlighted by the man who tried to stop the last one.
US didn’t win
America’s most famous soldier of modern times, General David Petraeus, wrote an opinion piece in Foreign Policy urging the country’s leaders to act before it is too late.
The title of the piece was ‘How we won in Iraq’. I doubt Gen Petraeus chose that title because the US did not win in Iraq.
The ‘surge’ of US troops to try to smother the violence was a success because it created the environment that allowed the Americans to leave. It didn’t solve any of the underlying problems in the country.
And so in response to this recent upswing in violence, the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has come to Washington to ask for an increase in military aid, which he says he needs to fight the extremists.
The problem is that many Iraqis see him as part of the problem – not part of the solution.
A group of US senators, including John McCain, this week accused Mr al-Maliki, who draws much of his support from the country’s Shia community, of “too often pursuing a sectarian and authoritarian agenda”, which is pushing Sunnis “into the arms of al-Qaeda in Iraq”.
Many see echoes of Saddam’s rule emerging in that of Mr al-Maliki.
The headline is incorrect…it should read America left Iraq and radicals are now killing it….the problems of Islamic sectarianism are not the fault of the USA…the USA provided Iraqis with freedom..if they stupidly want to use that freedom as an excuse to kill other Muslims then the USA cannot be blamed…the radical extremism of some parts of Islam is the real problem and all Muslims must find a way to eliminate this extremism from their countries…that is the same problem happening in all the ” Arab Spring” countries as the Muslim world wakes up to eliminating dictatorships and trying to restart a government…Islamic sharia principles of religion are not a good template for modern civilized democracy…when Muslims get pass that problem there may be peace…