Blaming Iraq's government leader rather than the U.S. president for the spectacular failure of American policy that has been the Iraq war is "cynical politics," the New York Times said in an editorial Friday.
"It is neither fair nor helpful in figuring out how to end American's biggest foreign policy fiasco since Vietnam," the leading U.S. newspaper said, citing the latest U.S. intelligence report on Iraq in which Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government was concluded to be unable to govern and will become "more precarious" over the next six months to a year.
"The problem is not Mr Maliki's narrow-mindedness or incompetence. He is the logical product of the system the United States created, one that deliberately empowered the long-persecuted Shiite majority and deliberately marginalized the long-dominant Sunni Arab minority."
"It was all but sure to produce someone very like Mr Maliki, a sectarian Shiite far more interested in settling scores than in reconciling all Iraqis to share power in a unified and peaceful democracy."
On fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq, the editorial said Washington and Baghdad are often at cross-purposes.
"In the western province of al Anbar, the American military has registered some gains by enlisting local Iraqi Sunnis to fight against foreign-led al-Qaeda formations... But the Maliki government prefers to concentrate on fortifying Shiite political power and exploiting the immense oil reserves of southeast Iraq. It is hard to imagine any Shiite government acting very differently."
On military withdrawal from Iraq, the article said the immediate sequels to a U.S. pullout will surely be brutal and more American deaths will not change that outcome.
Source: Xinhua
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