Six years later in Iraq: still no good news

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You don’t hear much about Iraq lately. I imagine with the sixth anniversary approaching — yes, sixth anniversary — that will change. But the war doesn’t seem to get much attention lately from politicians and the major media. Why is that?

Maybe it’s because the number of Iraqi civilians killed is estimated to be between 90,833 and 99,180, and the current U.S. death toll is 4,253. Perhaps it’s the two million people, mainly from the middle class, who have left Iraq, including 20,000 of its 34,000 doctors (2,000 of whom have been murdered). Or maybe it’s that the infrastructure remains in shambles or that religious and sectarian violence continues with the country increasingly balkanized between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

Whatever the reason, one thing is plain: The situation in Iraq doesn’t add up to good news any way you look at it; what the U.S. power structure was trying to pull off and what they actually realized are a study in devastating contrasts.

Remember Condoleezza Rice’s remarks during Israel’s ill-fated incursion into Lebanon in 2006: “What we’re seeing is the birth pangs of a new Middle East.” Iraq was to be the centerpiece, a beacon of democracy in that “new Middle East” inspiring friends and bringing foes to heel.

Needless to say, it didn’t happen. These days, the best the U.S. can hope for, according to Newsweek, is “an Iraq roughly like other nondemocratic states in the Middle East.”

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