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The 2003 invasion helped sow the seeds for an incipient civil war

The U.S. invaded Iraq 3,802 days — and 4,486 American lives — ago. As Iraq moves ever closer to civil war — 1,057 died there last month, the highest toll in five years, with more than 100 perishing in nationwide bombings since last weekend — the U.S. basically can do little to quell the violence its invasion a decade ago helped make possible.

The U.S. government said the weekend attacks were likely the work of al-Qaeda’s Iraq branch, exploiting ancient tensions between Islam’s Sunni and Shi‘ite sects.

For sure, there will be diplomacy. “We have close counterterrorism cooperation with the Iraqi government,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said on Tuesday. But because of its enforced sidelining, the U.S. can do little to actually try to end the violence.

The U.S. tolerated — used might be a better term — Saddam Hussein for years, until his murderous ways bled into Kuwait. That Iraqi overreach led the U.S. to force his troops back home in 1991. Twelve years later — amid rumors that Saddam had it in for the U.S. with (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction — the U.S. invaded Iraq. A new Iraqi government executed him in 2006, and removed the lone strongman apparently able to hold the state together, albeit with torture, executions of his own and chemical weapons used on his own citizens.

In hindsight, the lesson seems to be clear: if you want the U.S. to leave you alone, you can be pretty much as brutal as you want inside your borders. But cross them at your peril. The flip side is true, as well: invaders may find they are grappling with more than they bargained for. More at http://swampland.time.com/2013/08/14/u-s-sidelined-as-iraq-becomes-mor
e-bloody/#ixzz2bxbJ4ESf

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