Reconciliation in Iraq is impossible without US truth about its dirty war

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/07/reconciliation-iraq-impossible-us-truth-dirty-war


A guard escorts suspected terrorists at the police headquarters in Baghdad, 2008. Photograph: Karim Kadim/AP

The investigation by the Guardian and the BBC into direct Pentagon involvement in the systematic torture of Sunni insurgents in Iraq is a bloody reminder of the catastrophe that the 2003 invasion wreaked on the people of Iraq. It also a key reason behind the decade of sectarian violence the war has left in its wake.

After a decade of the most extreme bloodshed on both sides, the Sunni minority is now asserting its collective muscle in an organised fashion under the leadership of figures such as the Sunni scholar Abdul-Malik al-Saadi. The immediate reason for this upsurge in confidence among the Sunnis of Iraq is not hard to find.

The rebellion in neighbouring Syria, which began as essentially secular resistance movement, has attracted Sunni extremist groups from across the globe in support of the effort to bring down President Assad. Armed by regional troika of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, they are now about to be provided with military support by the west, including Britain, in an echo of the strategy under which western countries provided firepower to support the Islamist rebel forces in Libya.

This, in turn, has emboldened the Sunni minority, comprising a fifth of Iraq's population, which has been holding large-scale public demonstrations. Their attempt to mount a cross-sectarian challenge to the government in Baghdad has also attracted the support of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Meanwhile, the remnant of al-Qaida in Iraq has been attempting to use the protests as cover for a highly incendiary campaign inciting Sunnis to take up arms against the regime.