How sorry is the present state of Iraq – and how bitter do some Iraqis feel about the consequences of the U.S. invasion and withdrawal? For Iraq’s Azzaman, columnist Fateh Abdulsalam accuses President Obama of brazenly using the Iraq withdrawal to his political advantage and leaving the country ‘with a government reveling in the joys of its own corruption and the opportunistic use of the symbols of office to attain personal privilegeS and self aggrandizement.’
For Azzaman, Fateh Abdulsalam writes in part:
The occupation of Iraq has always been a profitable commodity for U.S. President Obama: He who snatched the presidency in January of 2009, reaching the post by holding high the banner “Withdraw from Iraq.” Today he’s back on the same theme, turning the withdrawal into a campaign issue, saying “I ended the war in Iraq.”
The approximately ten years and immense amounts of money that the U.S. has spent is enough to have completely rebuilt both Iraq and Afghanistan from scratch – and with plenty left over to repair laughably-inept public services that were never restored. We saw how they [Western media] portray the lack of electricity as so huge, even the superpower United States as unable to resolve it.
America is leaving behind a country with a government reveling in the joys of its own corruption and the opportunistic use of the symbols of office to attain personal privileges and self aggrandizement.
Out of either a lack of concern or criminal negligence, Iraqi officials pay little heed to a people burdened by their wounds, with ten percent of the population lost on the altar of freedom, security and honor – none of which have yet to be achieved. Yet out of sight of the Iraqi people, the government continues to beg the Americans to coordinate security and intelligence to protect them – rather than the people who alone paid the price with the government’s sword perched above their heads – and now with the U.S. withdrawal, an even threatening sword above.
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