Editorial: Back on the brink Saturday, 24 December 2011 02:33

Iraq is such a confusing muddle that it’s difficult to predict its future and analyse what is happening in the country. There are so many forces trying to benefit from its muddied waters and so many leaders and terrorists who work at cross purposes that there is one thing which Iraqis and the international community should not do: believe the official sources and sections of the media on what is happening in the country. One thing they can do to get as close as possible to the current events is ask as many questions as possible and seek answers to them.

Thursday was one of the bloodiest days in post-war Iraq, when insurgents carried out coordinated attacks in Baghdad that killed 60 people and wounded nearly 200, while violence elsewhere in the country claimed another seven lives. The sudden surge in violence and the political inflighting in Baghdad at a time of the withdrawal of US forces has given rise to various interpretations, one of which is that they are linked to the US withdrawal -- that the US has been a restraining, peaceful force in whose absence Iraq faces the threat of descending into chaos.

An easy explanation is that what is happening is sectarian violence. But why is it that the sectarian attacks are arimed at all sects and ethnicities? Can’t they be part of an agenda to create sectarian animosity and bloodshed and divide the country along sectarian lines? Is what we are witnessing the result of the divide-and-rule policy of the US forces? Why is that the Sunni Vice President Tareq Al Hashemi and Shia Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki are engaged in a mudslinging match when they should be focusing their energies on rebuilding the country after the exit of US forces?

Though he himself is the leader of a sectarian group, there is an element of truth in the statement of Shia cleric Muqtada Al Sadr that the current so-called sectarian divisions are “a conflict of the powerful” and the terrorist attacks are the product of “continued US influence and presence in Iraq”.  There is nothing to prove that Shias, Sunnis, Christians, Arabs, Kurds, Turkumen in Iraq want to slit each other’s throats and slice up their country after living in harmony for decades. There are forces which don’t want them to live in harmony and innocent Iraqis of all sects and ethnicities are being dragged into the vortex of power struggles being played by a number of forces.

The US created a secret Iraqi militia and reports say they smuggled tens of thousands of weapons and tonnes of explosives into Iraq. Washington is yet to explain how it spent an unaccounted for $8.8bn in the war budget. These are just a few of the many questions we need to keep asking.