A New Theory: America Responsible for Sectarian Strife in Iraq

America is responsible for the current sectarian divisions in Iraq, by virtue of its own ignorance.

I think we agree that the problem is mostly a struggle over the reigns of power in a new Iraq.  There are billions of dollars and plenty of patronage on the line.

I think we agree that most Americans knew very little about Iraq before 2003, and "learned" that some were Shia, some Sunni, and some Kurds.  Of course, that's not really accurate, since the Kurds are generally Sunni, but it is pretty simple and let's people think they've learned things.  Some of the more interested learned about the Turkomen, Christian and other groups that don't fall into one of the three main categories.

The news media repeated this categorization ad nauseum. Perhaps they were trying to prove that they had learned something about the Iraqi people we now ruled.

Government officials were, at least as far as I remember, slightly more likely to remind people of the Turkomen and Iraqi Christian community, but that is just my memory.

What the top echelons of the Executive Branch under the painfully retarded President Bush decided was to split power among the previously mentioned groups. For example, there would be two vice Presidents, so the President and 2 VPs could each represent one of the three groups.

Now, imagine you are an Iraqi politician.  You've got to build support.  You've got to form a coalition of like-minded Iraqis to achieve what you all think is justice, a fair deal and a promising future for Iraq.  One thing you know is that the Americans are handing out power based on their own ideas on the divisions of Iraq.  You would have no more rational strategy than to gain a large following in one group.  For example, if you were a Kurd but you had a mostly Arab Shia following, the Americans couldn't give you a Kurd seat, since you don't seem to represent the Kurds, and they can't give you the Shia seat, since you aren't Shia.

These divisions were written into the Constitution.

Please check out my new site I Want the Nobel Prize