US Goes Back To Play in Iraq

We saw it coming. Despite its resistance and the promises of bringing back the troops, the Obama administration agreed to intervene in Iraq with its army, even risking what victories had been attained following the disastrous intervention in Iraq in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

The destructive advance that the radical group Islamic State has been making since June in the north is not only a challenge for the stability of the country governed by the Shiite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, but also a clear threat to its territorial integrity if this bloodthirsty movement manages to consolidate the caliphate it claimed over the Syrian areas already under its control.

The bombings started yesterday by American planes against the Islamic State strongholds are meant not only to diminish its military capability, but also to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe arising from the stampede of at least 2,000 fleeing civilians of the Yazidi minority — believers of a pre-Islamic religion derived from Zoroastrianism — and some 120,000 Christians from the localities of Qaraqosh and Tel Kaif. The U.N. hopes to be able to create a humanitarian corridor to provide help and a way out for these communities.

Beyond humanitarian concern, that thing about “limited intervention” in Iraq seems like a late and desperate measure from Washington showing the holes in its military withdrawal (in December 2011). On the one hand, there’s the relative indifference of its support of a regime, like Maliki’s, which from the first days presented a sectarian profile to the detriment of the Sunni groups and was unable to form a government; on the other hand, there’s the avalanche of Islamic groups that captured the people’s legitimate desire for democracy arising from the so-called Arab Spring.

Maliki, as advised by the Shiite spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, should move aside, stop pushing for a third term and allow for the formation of an inclusive government. This will be the first step toward decreasing the everyday tragedies of Iraq and for the country, as a whole, to face the threat of radicals who would redesign the map of the Middle East over the corpses of thousands of people.