The Collapse of a House of Cards

The last U.S. soldier has barely left Iraq, and chaos is already breaking out in Mesopotamia. The Shiite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is lashing out wildly and already has an arrest warrant out for his Vice President, Tarik al-Hashimi. The reason: Al-Hashimi’s bodyguards are supposedly involved in terrorist activity. Maliki wants to eventually fire the entire lineup of Sunni ministers because they are boycotting his cabinet sessions. The situation is at its breaking point.

Washington can only watch helplessly as a supposed highlight of American diplomacy vanishes into thin air. With U.S. intervention, a compromise was painstakingly negotiated between the individual groups of citizens who had countless old scores to settle with each other and who, after the fall of Saddam Hussein, found the opportunity to attack each other. With great effort, a government was built, but the new order is as stable as a house of cards.

The negotiating table is not the only place where everything is collapsing. Iraq is currently being stricken with a wave of terror the likes of which seemed unimaginable just a few weeks ago. Shiites are killing Sunnis and vice versa. In the eighth year after Saddam, while a sectarian war rages inside, Iraq is falling to pieces. First the Salaheddin province broke away, and then in mid-December, the Diyala province, the region bordering Baghdad to the north, declared itself an autonomous region.

Also, Iraq has become a plaything for the big regional powers. Iran, a country that is currently working on a nuclear program, has, in the past few years, watched with great satisfaction as its arch nemesis deteriorated. Now, Iran can make Iraq its backyard without the U.S. being able to interfere. Turkey is trying to get the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq under control in the north, but PKK fighters are still digging in there.

The U.S. is standing on the ruins of its policy, and Americans are getting a taste of what is in store for them in Afghanistan. By 2014 the Americans should complete their troop-withdrawal from there, leaving behind a highly unstable political order plagued with corruption. The Taliban, a group that does not shudder at bombing attacks, is already waiting for its chance to get back into power. In the Hindu Kush, the different ethnic groups are suspiciously and eying each other with hostility. A civil war could quickly lead to the Islamists seizing power. That would return the country to its pre–U.S. invasion state of 2001.