You saw some good things, you saw many, many incompetent things. Do you think that America can be part of the promotion of democracy in the Middle East, or did we kind of blow that one, and we had our chance, and that was it?
Absolutely not. This is a lesson from Iraq. It needs guidance, assistance, nurturing, because at the end of the day, we live in this interconnected world, and we need each other.
It was a very fine note to land on, and, appropriately, the room received it warmly—however uncertain its policy implications. But an observation Salih made earlier in passing may have been just as much to the point: Remember what happened in Afghanistan. You did a lot to enable the Mujahideen. But then, when you turned away? Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword. Sign In Subscribe. It might well be that the war has ultimately given Iraqis a shot at democracy.
But it also eliminated the region's most important check on the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Ignatius pointed out, Iraq is now a transit point for materials and pro-Assad fighters going into Syria: "It's a perverse consequence of history that we spent a trillion dollars and countless American lives to give Iran strategic advantage in the region. But even if so, that majority would certainly be dominated by Kurds and Shias, and comprise very few Sunis.
And one of the major ongoing challenges that post-war Iraq faces is precisely: horrible sectarian violence. It might well be, too, that ultimate responsibility for the to-date acute failures in building a democratic Iraq lay with Iraq's post-war leadership. But ultimate responsibility surely still lies with the United States for, at the very least not knowing who will fail to build a successful new state after the U.
Most other government employees made similar figures. Those were by far the worst years of my life, and I've lived through some serious crap, trust me.
Towards the end of the '90s, things began to look better. Saddam was sensing his end and he tried to make a few improvements in income and infrastructure. He even tried to introduce a controlled version of satellite TV and wireless cellphones. But alas, America struck again in ; this time with the intention of removing Saddam while not really trying to avoid civilian casualties.
Another important distinction here is that Iraqis didn't care to defend their country anymore. They just sat back while the U. This is why this, and all similar questions, are misguided. Iraq was safer and much wealthier before any American intervention.
It was Americans, their support for Saddam, and later their war and sanctions on him that made Iraq such a terrible place to live. It then shouldn't come as a surprise that Iraqis had grown sick of their way of life. So much so that they sat back and watched America "save" them from its own doing.
And that, my friend, is the most hypocritical move in modern history! Furthermore, the war didn't improve things much anyway; on the contrary, it worsened the whole situation. Instead of living safely in poor conditions, Iraqis became somewhat wealthy, but lost all measures of personal safety. Where once they just had one tyrant to be afraid of, now they have hundreds more! Even keeping their mouths shut, which used to keep them safe, didn't help anymore.
People were dying for having the wrong religion, place of birth, or even the wrong name! The year was worse than and combined. Militias took over the streets, and it was chaos. Post , the violence surges became more tame; Babylon, where my family lives, was becoming a safer place to live.
Baghdad and few other cities were struggling still and took longer to stabilize. Though every now and then, we still have the occasional suicide bombing and kidnappings here and there.
My family's income has seen a tremendous boost since , and they now live comfortably. To endure it all, we used to sleep in one room next to each other on the floor. We said we were lucky to have survived, unlike other civilians.
But on April 9, a relative silence descended. We gathered in the hall of our house, and watched on our television how US troops had toppled the foot statue of Saddam erected in Farduz Square in Baghdad only a year earlier. It had never occurred to anyone that this would happen so soon. The spectacle was a bewildering contradiction: a dictator brought down by an occupying foreign invader.
I felt happy to see the fall of the dictator but it was painful for me to see my country occupied. It was an awkward feeling, one that I still cannot render in words. Iraq immediately sank into chaos. The lack of planning for post-invasion security allowed vandalism and looting.
American troops protected the Oil Ministry, but other governmental institutions and buildings were left unshielded. And they did not protect my university. To this day, I recall the devastating scenes at the department in which I studied.
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