Fareed Zakaria: Who lost Iraq? The Iraqis did, with an assist from George W. Bush
FAREED ZAKARIA Opinion writer
It is becoming increasingly likely that Iraq has reached a turning point. The forces hostile to the government have grown stronger, better equipped and more organized. And having now secured arms, ammunition and hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from their takeover of Mosul — Iraq’s second-largest city — they will build on these strengths. Inevitably, in Washington, the question has surfaced: Who lost Iraq?
Whenever the United States has asked this question — as it did with China in the 1950s or Vietnam in the 1970s — the most important point to remember is: The local rulers did. The Chinese nationalists and the South Vietnamese government were corrupt, inefficient and weak, unable to be inclusive and unwilling to fight with the dedication of their opponents. The same story is true of Iraq, only much more so. The first answer to the question is: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki lost Iraq.
The prime minister and his ruling party have behaved like thugs, excluding the Sunnis from power, using the army, police forces and militias to terrorize their opponents. The insurgency the Maliki government faces today was utterly predictable because, in fact, it happened before. From 2003 onward, Iraq faced a Sunni insurgency that was finally tamped down by Gen. David Petraeus, who said explicitly at the time that the core element of his strategy was political, bringing Sunni tribes and militias into the fold. The surge’s success, he often noted, bought time for a real power-sharing deal in Iraq that would bring the Sunnis into the structure of the government.
A senior official closely involved with Iraq in the Bush administration told me, “Not only did Maliki not try to do broad power-sharing, he reneged on all the deals that had been made, stopped paying the Sunni tribes and militias, and started persecuting key Sunni officials.” Among those targeted were the vice president of Iraq and its finance minister.
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EVER. So sickening that the same group that got us in there is now pushing really hard to get us back there. WE didn't get the oil the first time, so we need to go back and finish the job??
of hearing the war hawks saying we left too soon or we should go back - totally ignoring the obvious fact that we never should have gone in the first place!
We've caused far too many problems around the world by invading countries for our own reasons (forget what was said publicly) with lousy or no real exit strategy. We go in under the guise of solving their problems and instead make them worse. Can an entire country get hit with karma? If so, we've got some doozy karma headed our way.
Bush and the warmongers left Iraq in the hands of Iran. When you look at this map, is it any wonder there is now a strong Sunni insurgency? Wanna take a guess who is funding it?
