Fabled Baghdad

Iraq is dissolving into unmitigated chaos and sectarian strife. A reflection of the lasting pacifying effects of the painstaking diplomacy that took place between the Sunni, Shia and Kurdish communities with the United States acting as goodwill interlocutor. The United States, understandably, wishing to leave Iraq in fine mettle, for the future of democracy in the Middle East, and to assuage a national conscience that their sacrifice of U.S. military and American Treasury was not for naught.

It was, alas, for naught.

There is that about the volatile cocktail of tribalism, religious sectarianism, ideologies, honour, brinksmanship, and human nature, that produces stark instability. There is no shared vision for a united country, a proud nation that has a deep and abiding desire to work one in tandem with the other for the greater good of the people that they represent. Each faction, is entirely concerned with their own paramount self-interest.

And so, immediately upon withdrawal of the United States whose elected administration felt secure in the notion that reason is all-prevailing and in the greater interests of national unity the frail co-operative union they helped usher in, to conclude the Saddam Hussein chapter, would prevail.

And they could withdraw in good conscience, exhausted both militarily and financially.

Surely, they knew better. Hoping that if they articulated forcefully, loudly enough their confidence in the stability of the country and its democratic future, they would impress its importance upon those whom they knew were prepared to see the country implode again.

That withdrawal was the signal, none too soon, for the Shia majority, that their time had come. And Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki lost no time in making his move, accusing his Sunni counterpart of having planned and had executed violence directed against the Shia. Unleashing in the process the long-simmering, occasionally erupting hatred between the two.

Which resulted in no fewer than sixteen bombings in various part of Baghdad, hitting mostly Shia enclaves. Almost a hundred killed and 217 wounded. Oh, the Sunni areas were not completely spared; they too were hit. Place your bets; the Sunni Islamists, some of them aligned with al-Qaeda, against the Shia militias, most aligned with Iran.

And the peaceful, intelligent, hard-working, perplexed and concerned Kurds minding their business and doing it very well. A sovereign, separate Kurdistan must look most appealing at this juncture, complete with the oil riches located within that geographic location. They wish.