A depressing, detailed article from Foreign Affairs: 'The Iraq We Left Behind:
Welcome to the World’s Next Failed State' by Ned Parker, published early in 2012, but provided by a "lurker" today:http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...hind?page=show
The FA summary:It must have "set alarms off" in Washington DC, as a month later there was a riposte:Weeks after the last U.S. soldier finally left the country, Iraq is on the road to becoming a failed state, with a deadlocked political system, an authoritarian leader, and a looming threat of disintegration. Baghdad can still pull itself together, but only if Washington starts applying the right kind of democratic pressure -- and fast.Link behind a free, registration wall:http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...-iraq-on-trackIraq is hardly the failed state that Ned Parker portrayed in these pages, argues Antony Blinken, the U.S. vice president’s national security adviser. Norman Ricklefs sees Iraq’s politics becoming more moderate and less sectarian. Parker replies that despite these improvements, Baghdad still violates human rights and ignores the rule of law.
Like many here I expect we rarely look at what is happening now in Iraq, although thanks to JWing we can read his updates. From my little reading if anything Ned Parker's arguments are stronger today than when written.
If Iraq becomes a 'failed state' or more likely a brutal dictatorship, if the public in the UK and the USA notice further interventions abroad may be greeted with incredulity. Even more so if Afghanistan "goes down the tubes" and is seen as a waste of lives, money and power.
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