How Baghdad Fuels Iraq's Sectarian Fire

By artappraiser on Wed, 05/15/2013 - 5:28pm |

By Sarah Leah Whitson, New York Times Guest Op Ed, May 15/16, 2013

(Sarah Leah Whitson is Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.)

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government has hurled the country to the brink of a new civil war. In under a month, Baghdad launched a vicious assault on a Sunni protest camp, resulting in 44 deaths; executed 21 alleged Sunni terrorists in one day, and suspended the licenses of 10 satellite channels, 9 of them deemed pro-Sunni.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s message to his country’s extremely disaffected Sunni minority, which resists with an increasing sense of futility joining the battles between Maliki’s forces and extremists? “Bring It On!”

The country remains in shambles after years of gruesome civil war pitting the minority Sunnis against the newly dominant Shias [....]

URL:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/opinion/global/how-baghdad-fuels-iraqs-sectarian-fire.html?pagewanted=all