Iraq
Invasion by USA/UK, sectarian violence, Muslim insurgency, ongoing since 2003, though slowly subsiding during 2008.
This war was ostensibly to topple the dictator Saddam Hussein and disable his weaponry, but its geostrategic, oil-related and religious symbolism have been clear. Part of a US neo-con Christian ‘crusade’ in the Middle East against rising Muslim values and power.
600,000 violent deaths, 1m deaths overall, 5m displaced. Three elements pervade this conflict:
1. US invasion and Iraqi resistance to it;
2. sectarian conflict between differing militias and social groups (especially Sunni-Shi’a); and
3. international Muslim (al Qaeda and external Shi'a influences, mainly in Iran) insurgency against USA and the Iraqi government.
The background behind (2) lies in Saddam Hussein's secular suppression of Islam, and his favouring of the Sunni minority over the Shi'a majority in Iraq in the 1980s-90s. General historical background: the British creation of Iraq in 1920s, binding Shi’as, Sunnis and Kurds into one country; corruption and power imbalances connected with oil trade wealth; Iraqi hardships under Saddam Hussein, and US pressures such as the 1990 Gulf War and general 1990s blockades.
Kidnappings and suicide bombings have driven out international organisations, media and aid workers, together with many refugees leaving to Syria, Iran, Europe and USA. The bad security situation and corruption have hampered normalisation and reconstruction, though conditions have improved gradually during 2008, and social normality has slowly but tentatively been returning.
The internal conflict is particularly between the Sunni minority (formerly privileged) and Shi’a majority, also affecting Assyrian and other minority Christians and Sunni Kurds. American military damage, power abuses and corruption have affected the situation negatively. International jihadi Al Qaeda involvement, opposing USA, raised the stakes of the mayhem in Iraq between 2003 and 2007 - now subsided, not least because of the building of local Iraqi consensus.
In late 2008 the Iraqi government has ben negotiating a staged US withdrawal, to be complete by 2011. The future of the country rests on reconciliation and viable power arrangements between the Shi'a majority and Sunni, Christian and Kurdish minorities. There is a tendency toward division into three main areas, based on the old Ottoman regions which once separated Sunnis, Kurds and Shi'as, but which the British united after WW1 into the entity of Iraq..
Links:
Reuters Alternet: Iraq
Flashpoints: Iraq
Al Jazeera: Iraq Invasion
Conflicts Forum: the Iraqi Resistance
Wikipedia: Iraq War
BBC: Struggle for Iraq
Global Security: Iraqi Reconstruction