On Wednesday Journalist Nir Rosen spoke at the New America Foundation about his new book Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America’s Wars in the Muslim World. One of Rosen’s main arguments in the book concerning Iraq is that the civil war that engulfed that country began in 2003 shortly after the American invasion, and not in 2006 after an attack on a Shiite mosque in Samarra. Between this period of time, many American decisions made regarding the Iraq war only heightened the animosity between Sunni and Shia. Rosen explained that the American policy of looking at Iraq in a mostly sectarian way, and in many ways pressuring Sunnis while working with Shia all culminated in the vast bloodletting that took place.
Asked a question about the refugee crisis in Iraq and the surrounding region, Rosen said that
We have it seems like a half a million Iraqi Refugees. The number was really inflated on the part of the Syrian and Jordanian governments, because more refugees equals more money. But it’s still a huge humanitarian disaster. And they are sort of blending into the urban fabric of Damascus or Aleppo, Amman, Zarqa…and tragically the very Iraqis that you would have wanted in Iraq to populate the government, the professional class, were often the ones who fled, the ones who tended to be better educated, middle or upper class, non sectarian, maybe a little bit secular. Not only [these], but those are the ones who felt maybe most vulnerable because there wasn’t a secular militia or a non sectarian militia.”
Shortly after his talk, Rosen left for Iraq to work with a number of Refugee organizations as well as to continue his freelance reporting.
To see the full talk follow the link below :
Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America’s Wars in the Muslim World – New America Foundation