Kurds, Sunni, Shi’a and oil

A country invented by foreigners is expected to remain the same?

“I know lots of people in the U.S. government who were involved with the Iraqi reconstruction and democratization effort after the initial fighting stopped back in May 2003. As I have said before, when you are in the government it is your job to make the policy work. That is why, frequently, those who care the most are always the last to know when that policy simply can’t work. Since my job in the government back in 2003 was off to the side of this effort, I was at my ease in playing Team B to my colleagues, teaching them what I knew (and what they usually didn’t) about the history of the country, and suggesting that what they were doing was very unlikely to succeed in the not-so-long run. They told me I was mistaken, but ever since I have been out of government I have maintained my view that the rickety democratic scaffolding we erected in Iraq could not endure long without our presence there to maintain it. It seemed to me like the showy coating of a seedpod in a garden, bound to fall away when the weather turned, leaving the seeds to grow wild according to the only patterns they knew.”

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/garfinkle/2012/12/04/what-a-day/