The Coming Disintegration Of Iraq -- Joel Rayburn, Washington Post
Inside the legacy of Nouri al-Maliki
Nouri al-Maliki may have agreed to step down as prime minister of Iraq on Thursday, but the damage he has wrought will define his country for decades to come. The stunning collapse of the Iraqi state in its vast northern and western provinces may be Maliki’s most significant legacy. After nine decades as the capital of a unitary, centralized state, Baghdad no longer rules Kurdistan, nor Fallujah, nor Mosul, and might never rule them again.
To his likely successor, Haider al-Abadi, Maliki will bequeath an Iraqi state that has reverted to the authoritarian muscle memory it developed under Saddam Hussein. But it will be a state that effectively controls not much more than half the territory Hussein did. As Maliki and his loyalists succeeded in consolidating control of the government and pushing rivals out of power, they drove the constituencies of those they excluded — especially Sunni Arabs and Kurds — into political opposition or armed insurrection. Their drive for power alienated Iraqis across all communities from the central state whose wards and clients they had once been, leaving almost no provincial population trustful of the central government. Maliki has held sway in Baghdad, but whole swaths of Iraq have fallen out of his control: The tighter he grasped the state, the more the country slipped through his fingers.
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My Comment: Nouri al-Maliki's main ally .... Iran .... has just as much to blame for this disaster. They pushed Maliki for a sectarian division assuming that Sunnis and Kurds would comply .... blow-back at this level was never in their calculations. The above video from Al Jazeetra's "Inside Story" also paints a bleak picture.
4 comments:
They either know or fear Iraq is going down, so we get the preemptive "It's not Obama's fault" articles. Actually Maliki makes a good fall guy for Obama and Iran.
They either know or fear Iraq is going down, so we get the preemptive "It's not Obama's fault" articles. Actually Maliki makes a good fall guy for Obama and Iran.
Baghdad's Shiite population is huge .... but the city is now almost surrounded by hostile Sunni forces/militias. And while I have trouble seeing a frontal assault by Sunni militants against the Shiite strongholds in the capital .... cutting off the delivery of goods, services, and supplies is probably the strategy that will be employed .... especially now.
Considering the Islamic State is just beside itself over battle field attrition form American airstrikes, which has hobbled them or slowed them but not defeated them.
They should have some areas 'in the bag' by now such as the Mosul Dam. They might still hold it but they have had to pay a higher price than without American interference.
Since we have not defeated them and they are helpless to American air power (or so it seems), they will change tactics. They might go after infrastructure going into Baghdad sooner rather than later. If they think they are getting pushed out of the Mosul damn they might break locks, valves and generators. One they do it there they would have less compunction down south to do the same thing.
Sure Baghdadis can get water from the river, but it would be onerous and disease will breakout.
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