Iraq in Fragments

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The project to transform Iraq from an impoverished dictatorship into a prosperous, functioning, multi-ethnic democracy that would act as a role-model to the states of the Arab Middle East will stand as one of the most ambitious political ventures of the modern era. Instead, the Coalition powers that took control of the country in 2003 have become mired in the politics of sect and class, of regional ambition and of religious authority. Having sucked out the centre of the old Iraqi state, they have been unable to establish effective national institutions to take its place, or to bestow a structure upon the political process inside Iraq that allows for peaceful competition for power. This book analyses in detail why the Iraqi polity fractured after the invasion, and the consequences of this fragmentation. The major reason advanced by Herring and Rangwala rests not with the Iraqi people's fixed and antagonistic ethnic or sectarian identities, but with the absence of meaningful state institutions. Instead, the struggle for authority has been played out as a series of turf wars, with external or international institutions drawn ever deeper into the fissures that characterise the new Iraq.