At this time of the year, it is perhaps fitting that if peace cannot be achieved, it might as well be that the war is ended.
In this vein, it is fitting that the final chapter of the ill-advised war in Iraq is closing.
The last United States forces left Iraq on Sunday, almost nine years after launching a divisive war in 2003 to oust former president Saddam Hussein, at a time when the country grapples with renewed political deadlock and pronounced tribal divisions.
Ending the war was an early goal of President Barack Obama’s administration, and the withdrawal allows him to fulfil a crucial campaign promise during a politically opportune time.
But questions still remain whether Iraqis will be able to forge their new government amid sectarian clashes. Iraq, while seemingly capable of maintaining internal security, now lacks the means to defend its borders, airspace and territorial waters.
Many Iraqis are now nervous and uncertain about the future. Their relief at the end of the Saddam regime was tempered by a long and vicious war that was launched to find non-existent weapons of mass destruction and nearly plunged Iraq into full-scale sectarian civil war.
Many fear the Americans are leaving behind a destroyed country with thousands dislocated and a people deeply divided along sectarian lines without rebuilding the devastated infrastructure.
Some Iraqis are nonetheless celebrating the exit of “American occupiers”, who were neither invited nor welcome in their country. Others said that while grateful for United States’ help in ousting Saddam, the war went on too long.
The withdrawal comes as the country struggles with renewed political deadlock as the Iraqiya bloc of mainly Sunnis, which won March 2010 elections, said it was boycotting parliament to protest Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s centralisation of decision-making.
Iraqiya said the government’s actions, in stationing tanks and armoured vehicles outside the houses of the bloc’s leadership in the heavily-fortified Green Zone, encourages opponents to resist “the strong arm of central power as far as the constitution allows them to”.
Provincial authorities in three Sunni-majority provinces in north and west Iraq have all moved to take up the option of similar autonomy to that enjoyed by Kurds in north Iraq, drawing an angry response from Maliki, a Shiite.
Key political issues such as reform of the mostly state-run economy and a law to regulate and organize the lucrative energy sector also remain unresolved. There is also the potentially explosive territorial dispute between Arabs and Kurds around the northern city of Kirkuk.
Some observers also fear a return to bloody sectarianism, doubt the strength of Iraq’s political structures, and feel that Maliki has entrenched his power base to the detriment of the country’s minorities.
With this in mind, the United States says it plans to keep a robust diplomatic presence and foster a bilateral relationship with Iraq and maintain a strong military force in the region.
