Word: iraq
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...Lessons Not Learned in Vietnam.” Phillips, although an American citizen, spent 14 years living in Vietnam, part of it during his tenure in the CIA. Phillips said that many mistakes that the U.S. made in Vietnam War are being repeated in the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We must not let ourselves be undermined by our own sense of superiority,” Phillips said during the talk. “Only the local people we are trying to help can win this kind of struggle. Democracy has to grow from ground...
...political conflicts, those political conflicts are threatening to become even more complicated. Besides the Arab-Kurd and Sunni-Shi'ite divides, there has long been a struggle among rival political parties for supremacy among the Shi'ites. Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki recently called for amendments to Iraq's constitution to strengthen the central government's power at the expense of the country's 18 provinces. This week, Maliki's rivals in the southern Shi'ite bastion of Basra submitted a petition demanding a referendum in the oil-soaked province aimed to turning it into a semi-autonomous...
...more expansive than just Basra, and whose concern would obviously be to create a political entity in which it could rule - is sitting on the fence in response to the Basra autonomy proposal, the Sadrists are furious. "It's playing with fire that could engulf all of Iraq," says Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi, a spokesman for Sadr's movement in the southern Shi'ite holy city of Najaf. "The result might be the division of Iraq if it's forced now, during this period...
...Sunnis, who ruled dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein, are also hostile, having already had to confront the unpalatable prospect of the country's northern oil fields falling under the control of the Kurdish region. "This will create many problems over water rights, the delineation of borders, oil fields, mineral resources, this all needs to be considered," says Hashem al-Ta'ie, head of parliament's regional and provincial committee and a member of the largest Sunni parliamentary bloc. "Look at the problems between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the central government...
...longer the foundation for creating a state. Let the people of Basra decide." The people of Basra, of course, will likely present different views on the matter, at the urging of rival political parties. And the resulting tension may yet present new security challenges in Iraq...