Most people have heard the story that, when Rome burned in 64 AD, the Emperor Nero played his fiddle as he watched the city burn all around him. While the people suffered, he drank wine and watched tranquilly out the window.
Today Baghdad is burning. Cities are falling to independent armed brigands. And while all this is going on, Nouri Al-Maliki rejects putting politics aside and forming together a unified government with the opposition. With the very people that live with him in Iraq.
Al-Maliki has served as Prime Minister of Iraq since 2006, after the ousting of Saddam Hussein. He has, therefore, been Prime Minister of Iraq for 8 years now and for the duration of the conflict.
During that time, the United States has invested billions of dollars in creating a democratic infrastructure for the diverse state located across the Fertile Crescent, having left only recently.
As insurgents have been capturing cities, much like that which is befalling Syria, Al-Maliki has asked that the United States return. Rather than work out a coalition and solution with his own government, he is seeking foreign assistance from the United States government.
In times of crises, perhaps it is necessary to work together with ones' countrymen. However, the fact that Al-Maliki feels more comfortable consulting the United States could be full proof that Iraq is too diverse a country for Al-Maliki (or any one politician) to represent.
Americans en masse are uncomfortable with a return to Iraq. There seems to be no benefit or merit in returning to a place that has so different a culture than our own. While today, with democracy, cities are falling and sites are being destroyed. And only thirty years ago, in a dictatorship, the currency of this once thriving and even cosmopolitan state was worth equivalent to the Kuwaiti Dinar -- the highest valued currency of the world.
Today Baghdad is burning. Cities are falling to independent armed brigands. And while all this is going on, Nouri Al-Maliki rejects putting politics aside and forming together a unified government with the opposition. With the very people that live with him in Iraq.
Al-Maliki has served as Prime Minister of Iraq since 2006, after the ousting of Saddam Hussein. He has, therefore, been Prime Minister of Iraq for 8 years now and for the duration of the conflict.During that time, the United States has invested billions of dollars in creating a democratic infrastructure for the diverse state located across the Fertile Crescent, having left only recently.
As insurgents have been capturing cities, much like that which is befalling Syria, Al-Maliki has asked that the United States return. Rather than work out a coalition and solution with his own government, he is seeking foreign assistance from the United States government.
In times of crises, perhaps it is necessary to work together with ones' countrymen. However, the fact that Al-Maliki feels more comfortable consulting the United States could be full proof that Iraq is too diverse a country for Al-Maliki (or any one politician) to represent.
Americans en masse are uncomfortable with a return to Iraq. There seems to be no benefit or merit in returning to a place that has so different a culture than our own. While today, with democracy, cities are falling and sites are being destroyed. And only thirty years ago, in a dictatorship, the currency of this once thriving and even cosmopolitan state was worth equivalent to the Kuwaiti Dinar -- the highest valued currency of the world.
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