Who will extinguish the fires of this warfare?

 

By Amjad al-Smarrai

 

Azzaman, February 27, 2006

 

Since the fall of Baghdad to U.S. troops on April 9, 2003, a new kind of war has started in our country which is more barbaric, more vicious and more evil the modern world has ever seen.

 

Instead of planting democracy, tolerance, human rights and reconciliation, the U.S. occupation has bred sectarian and ethnic strife and an atmosphere of insecurity in which human life has become worthless.

 

Sectarian tensions, which were non-existent, began to surface under the banner of multi-party system and pluralism.

 

The occupation may not directly be responsible for the current divisions in the society but it has encouraged them and paved the way for them to take roots that have become almost impossible to wipe out.

 

The sectarian ditches were dug by Iraqi hands but the occupation helped in the digging, filling these ditches with fuel and setting them on fire.

 

It is naïve to blame the bombing of the shrine of holy imams in Samarra for the current upheaval. Sectarian tensions were simmering and the bombing was only meant to add more fuel to the already raging sectarian fire.

 

Iraqis have gone through wars and suffering and the hardest were the 13-year-long U.N. trade sanctions which impoverished the Iraqi society, emaciated its women and children and had almost ruined the infrastructure.

 

It is good to try to contain the disturbances in the aftermath of shrine’s bombing but those in charge must remember civil strife will persist unless the reasons that led to its creation are addressed.

 

There are factions who seem to be pleased to see the country in such turmoil. They think immersion in sectarian schemes and divisions and the shedding of streams of innocent blood will serve their vicious intentions.

 

Filling Iraqi streets with tanks, armored personnel carriers and troops will not solve the problem.

 

Iraqi leaders need to utilize this embarrassing moment to agree upon a national project to save the country.

 

We are in need of a broad national government that reinforces national unity, dissolves armed militias, puts an end to kidnapping and killing and reinstates law and order.