Iraq: From Glory to Gory!

 Mesopotamia 

  This is a story, story of a proud civilization fighting a losing battle to hold their head high. Iraq, we shudder at the name! Every time we mention Iraq in the same breath we speak of war, of destruction, of chaos or uncivilized barbarians running loose! 

  Tigris and Euphrates the rivers whose banks have been the genesis of the ancient world often termed the cradle of civilization. It has been the seat of power for several empires like Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Abbasid empires (I hope to write about each of these empires in future – in case you are wondering)   

 Now the glory of past and the gory of the present are something which we are familiar with. But there is a question we conveniently forget. A culprit we let free. So, let’s trace the modern Iraqi history.  

Villains: Dictators and Monarchs 

  Iraq was under the Turkish rule till Britain took over the state by the time of 1st world war that is 1920 the state of Iraq was recognized as a kingdom.  In 1939 at the age of 3 King Faisal II succeeded his father after an accident. The Faisal II on the other hand was assassinated and overthrown in a revolutionary coup by the military headed by Abdul Kassem he tried reversing the kings pro western policies which communist leanings.          

 In 1963  Kassim had a déjà vu like coup experience with the socialist Baath party overthrowing him.The Batth party was headed by Gen. Abdel Rahman Arif  and unleashed a bloody authoritarian regime till 1968  when Maj. Gen. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr ousted him and Bakr subordinate was the know infamous Saddam .

 Blood on our hands 

 The lost page I was speaking of was the fact that through out all these regimes, authoritarian, barbaric, reformist or revolutionary the state has always been remarkably secular, unfamiliar with the sectarian strife so openly abused after the west interfered to bring in civility to the state.

  Now if you are thinking that the Sunni dominant minority oppressed and Shia majority and cleansed the ethnic minority Kurds, I agree that the abuse was ghastly! But every society deals with its own problems. If solution was to make the problem ubiquitous then I wonder!

  The UN sanctions and the US intervention to help together destroyed the country and killed far more people then these dictators put together. The civilized world intervened to cleanse the barbarians from Iraq to let loose the demons of religion, sect, terror, poverty, fear. This has been the tragedy of Iraq. The organized civil society has clinically destroyed a proud civilization much more than all the rulers put together ever hoped to do. 

  And at last if you are thinking the UN and US did it damn them, but why do we have blood on our hands? The stains are of silence, abetting the crime by not raising a feeble voice.  Lastly, what happened to them may happen to us… Today India is marred by sectarian violence. Do we need US to come and clean it up for us?