PressEthic

The US led war in Iraq ousted a dictatorship, although did not uproot it, but at the same time renewed old ethnic and religious tension inside and outside Iraq. The one important thing that the US administration did not take into consideration before launching the war was a deep analysis of Iraq’s social composition and how it was build throughout its history. This is also an important background point that most media outlets have often missed.

Structure of Iraq’s society is quite complicated. After the fall of the Othman empire at the beginnings of the past century, Iraq became a colony of Britain. Together with other colonialist forces, they rearranged the whole region and annexed different ethnicities, like Kurds, to different countries. To keep it short, since then Iraq has been kept stable by force whether it was the force of the early colonialists, against which different Iraqi communities fought, or of the various dictators.

Of course, the US led war on Iraq in 2003 touched the same sensitive question that the Europeans once did. One important question that the Bush administration should have asked themselves is: Can a democracy keep Iraq’s diverse society stable? How should we deal with the most sensitive and problematic region? For many years, dictators served the west, so how would the outcome of the dictatorship ouster be, considering the social difference in Iraq?

This is why the US and the coalition countries in Iraq are suffering form the outcomes of the war. The current situation in Iraq was unexpected for all sides, which is the result of poor political planning.

I think dealing with middle-east in this stage of history is a game that needs very well trained players.