It is obvious to everyone today - that is, apart from the policy wonks at the White House - that the United States has failed in its policy in Iraq and that the chances of stabilizing the situation there are close to zero. This also has to be admitted by those who justified the war against the tyrant, who used poison gas on the Kurdish population and in the war with Iran, and who for years played cat-and-mouse games with United Nations mechanisms over the disarming of his regime's non-conventional weapons.

There are two reasons for the American failure: The first has to do with the creation of Iraq as a state by British imperial planners after World War I; the second stems from the belief of U.S. President George W. Bush's associates that it is possible to export democracy to a country like Iraq by means of occupation and force.

Of all the Arab countries, Iraq has been exceptionally oppressive since its establishment. The background to this was provided by the British decision in 1918 to combine three provinces of the Ottoman Empire into one state. This union did not have historical or demographic roots that reflected the population's consciousness. While the Mosul province had a Kurdish majority, Sunni Arabs dominated in Baghdad and the center, and there was a Shi'ite Arab majority in the south. The British installed a prince from the Sunni Hashemite dynasty to rule over this hybrid structure.