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Imagining the Future in Iraq Essay

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Imagining the Future in Iraq

The future of Iraq remains unclear. There are those who have tried to categorize the current conflict as the next Vietnam. Others have dubbed it the next Afghanistan, and others still see a future for Iraq unlike any seen in history. In the midst of all this speculation, one thing is certain: eventually, the US military must withdraw from occupied Iraq. As a matter of history, occupation does not last unless there is a concomitant colonization and/or a significant population influx. Since the latter is absent from the current situation in Iraq, it holds that an eventual American military withdrawal is inevitable.

Interestingly enough, the U.S.'s "divide and conquer" method, i.e. one which attempts …show more content…

Just as in George Orwell's 1984, where the government was in the business of tampering with public records to push their agenda, so too is the current administration sugar-coating the truth with falsehood and deceptively harming the American public by keeping them in the dark. Wouldn't it be ironic though if Iraq managed, as in Iran, to take over the American Embassy and declare the independence of its own theocratic state?

The current situation does after all mirror Iran's prior to the Revolution of 1979 in several ways. The United States's presence was one that encouraged the political repression of those against the established power in Iran and does the same today in Iraq. Further, Shias, who constitute sixty percent of the Iraqi population and almost all of Iran's, tend to gather more than Sunnis in large groups during such mourning holidays as Ashura and Arba'een, and so have a ritual means of gathering en masse. Also, just like the thousands of troops the U.S. has stationed around the country, so too did the Shah employ tens of thousands of SAVAK agents, or secret police, to keep a tight grip on any potential insurrection. Ultimately, the instability of the mass protests frightened the Shah and he fled to Egypt shortly afterwards. In Iraq, escalating American deaths and an unstable situation could convince the

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