The significance of Iraq goes back thousands of years. Much before the coming of Christ. Modern-day Iraq is situated in the region that gave birth to the Mesopotamian civilisation .
Centuries later, it was a part of the Ottoman empire. Then came British control with the Empire administering the country after World War I and many believe that at least some of Iraq’s present day problems have their roots in the colonial borders that were drawn by the British.
The man who ruled the country with an iron hand, Saddam Hussein of the Ba’ath Party, seized power in 1979. With unbridled powers, the ruthless dictator led a Sunni-dominated government till his ouster in 2003.
The US-led invasion contributed to the unleashing of a bloody insurgency led by Iraq’s Sunnis who had also controlled the country under Saddam Hussein’s regime. Indeed, the Sunnis, though in minority, have been unwilling to accept their reduced status since the fall of Saddam.
The long drawn Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988 and the 1991 Gulf War are also believed to have stoked the sectarian fires.
In the north, the Kurdish community has managed to create an autonomous region of its own. India’s former ambassador to Iraq, R. Dayakar, notes that the Kurds, who have been fighting for independence for generations, have suffered repression at the hands of successive Iraqi regimes.
According to Mr Dayakar, the historical roots of the current strife in Iraq lies in the dominance of the ‘minority’ Sunnis over Shias.
However, he says that the fall of the Saddam regime in 2003 saw the majority Shias getting politically empowered and the Sunnis losing their pre-eminence. Further, the disbanding of the Coalition Provisional Authority that ruled Iraq for a year in the post 2003-invasion period disbanded the country’s army and proclaimed de-Ba’athification, rendering thousands of Sunnis jobless.
ISIL the clone of al-Qaeda, which is now in control of huge swathes of territory in Iraq, including the cities of Tikrit and Mosul, is now targeting Iraq’s Shia population and seeking to topple the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
