Summary

Iraq is caught between glory and despair

Rarely in world history do we have a case like the state of Iraq today.

Iraq is everything we could be, and everything we fear to become, rolled into one land.

These include foreign interests that created the country in the first place, decades of a megalomaniacal security-state rule that led to corruption and mediocrity in state institutions, structural meddling in Iraq’s affairs by strong regional powers, repeated foreign military interventions, socioeconomic mismanagement and incompetence in governance, the fracturing of the central state in favor of decentralized sectarian identities and interests, reassertion of sect-centered single strongman rule, and, most recently, the rise of militant movements using religion for mobilizing and legitimizing purposes.

Mustering indigenous Iraqi military capabilities to push back and eventually liquidate the Islamic State threat?

Foreign military assistance is clearly required in the short run to give Iraqis the breathing space to regroup and repel the Islamic State phenomenon.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2014/Aug-13/266992-iraq-is-caught-between-glory-and-despair.ashx#ixzz3Ad52OCI0
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)