Daily Times

Iraq is up in flames and that means dire consequences for other parts of the Muslim world. Fallujah, a city in the province of Al Anbar, is once again ground zero in a civil war that has taken on unearthly proportions ever since the US troop withdrawal from the country in December 2011. The city, and most of Al Anbar province, has fallen into militant hands with only some parts slowly being retaken by the Iraqi authorities. However, the story on the ground in Fallujah and in the highest corridors of power in Washington DC is one of mounting frustration at the governments of both Hasan al-Maliki in Iraq and Barack Obama in the US.

Republicans in Washington are having a field day accusing the Obama administration of acting too prematurely in Iraq, pulling out US troops before tackling the many problems faced by the country. While micro-level rebuilding of the country may have been initiated, the troop withdrawal led to a vacuum soon filled by infighting between armed civil groups and al Qaeda militants ready to seize power. In Iraq, and elsewhere, the people are blaming al-Maliki, a Shia, for excluding Sunnis from playing a role in the formation of the government, leaving embittered Sunni jihadists with a reason to grab power through force. Just yesterday, two separate car bombs killed 13 civilians in Baghdad in a fresh spate of violence. Not a day goes by when Iraq, especially its restive Al Anbar province, are not in the news for some fresh tragedy or the other.

Iraq today, with all its terror, bloodshed and tragedy is an unfortunate image of what Afghanistan seems dangerously close to becoming. US and NATO troops pullout is slated for July of this year and, with all the to and fro indecisiveness on the national security agreement, which aims to provide full protection to the residual forces, it seems unlikely that the US is going to leave a significant number of its troops to oversee a smooth transition. If this happens, we are looking at yet another long and violent civil war in the country with the Taliban rushing in to take back power. Afghanistan is now home to some very powerful armed groups that will not let the Taliban wrestle control so easily. If this happens, more loss of innocent life and incomprehensible violence look ready to set in. This will have an uncontrollable spillover effect on Pakistan, a probability it just cannot afford. We are battling a home-grown Taliban group and sectarian violence of unprecedented brutality. To have to deal with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan taking sanctuary in Afghanistan and launching attacks from there, which it has already started, is something the armed forces here will be too stretched to control. We cannot afford to have an Iraq next door to us — not at this time in our turbulent history. *