The 9th anniversary of Iraq invasion

Nine years back from today the US and British troops invaded Iraq to bring democracy there. Tanks of the international coalition forces entered Baghdad and helped locals topple Saddam Hussein`s statue. 

The toppling of Hussein was one of the major goals of the coalition forces who invaded Iraq without UN mandate. They were searching for weapons of mass destruction which were not found though. The Americans caught the dictator and hanged him after the court found him guilty for killing 148 Shiasin Dujail in 1982.    

Meanwhile, the democracy imposed by the US has affected each Iraqi family, says Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies:

"Official data show the death toll from Iraqi violence standing at hundreds of thousands. But regional human rights activists insist the war has claimed more than a million lives, while nearly three million Iraqis fled to Syria and Jordan and have not been given refugee status."

The US-British invasion destroyed the Christian community in Iraq (there were many Christians in Hussein’s circle). Partnered by Tehran, Washington’s major enemy, Iraqi Shias are consumed with radical separatism. Sunni-inhabited areas were damaged not only by the US forces but the Iraqi police and army as well. Once oppressed Kurds formed an independent enclave in the north and have been forcing Arabs to move there. The Americans brought harm not only to Saddam Hussein but to ordinary Iraqis, too, says Alexander Khramchikhin, the deputy head of the Institute for Political and Military Analysis:

"Iraq is on the brink of a civil war. Now the country seems to be going with the flow. But Kurdistan is already a de-facto autonomous state, and tensions remain very high between Sunnis and Shias."

Forced regime change in Iraq certainly was an omen of the Arab Spring uprising in North Africa and in the Middle East. The Arab Spring protests were aimed at toppling the dictators: Tunisian Ben Ali, Egypt`s Hosni Mubarak, Yemen`s Ali Saleh. Libya`s Muammar Gaddafi was lynched. But it is clear now that the geopolitical results of the revolts were very sad. Expert for the Institute of StrategicEvaluation and Analysis, Sergei Demidenko, comments:

"Evidently, the toppling of these regimes has not brought either stability or democracy to the Middle East or to North Africa. What did happen was that Islamists managed to strengthen their position in the region. If radical Islamists seize power, things will get even worse. If moderate Islamists assume power, we should expect nothing positive either. Chaos and instability – this is what the region is up to."

Yemen has practically collapsed, with al-Qaida gaining more control over the country’s south. The Muslim Brotherhood is trying to persuade Washington to welcome Egypt’s Islamization, hoping to receive further military support. Like it once happened in Iraq, former aides to the toppled Libyan dictator are facing reprisals. Power is in the hands of field commanders and tribal heads, and tensions between them look like a new civil war which is just about to begin. Fights which took place after Gaddafi`s death have already claimed more lives than during the clashes between his forces and the opposition at the very start of the conflict. And this is what has come out of the Western attempt to forcefully impose democracy on Libya.