Quote Originally Posted by Kralizec
This bit of conventional wisdom is thrown around a lot, but it's not that simple. The Shia and Kurds wanted the dissolution of the army because the military officers were almost entirely drawn from Sunni tribes and had been instrumental in keeping the rest of the country under Saddams boot. If they had kept the army intact and civil war would still have broken out, people would be pointing fingers at that stupid idea.
It's because that bit of conventional wisdom is true. Saddam had Shia officials in his regime also and replacing the Sunni officers after his death didn't necessarily warrant de-Baathification of Iraqi army. The fact of the matter is that the US governor of Iraq disbanded a multiethnic military institution and handed over state coercive power to the Shia.
Quote Originally Posted by Kralizec
The fact of the matter is that Iraq's central government had an opportunity to reconcile with the Sunnis at this point, but the Shia dominated government blew it. The Sunni who had supported the counter-insurgency felt betrayed, paving the way for ISIS several years later.
In short: there's a 10 year gap in your chronology of events.
At which point they (Iraqi gov) were already a client of Iran. It sort of proves his point.
1) decades of Baathist rule which actively exploited ethnic tensions to justify its authority
2) meddling of neighbouring states, essentially this whole quagmire is a proxy war between Qatar and Saudi Arabia on one hand and Iran on the other
1) This may be true about Baathist Iraq, but far from the truth in Syria's case.
2) Western countries discredited the country's sovereignty when they asked Assad to step down publicly and started funding foreign non-Syrian movements in the country after destroying Iraq. They opened the door for the neighboring countries to split it open.