Nouri al-Maliki may have agreed to step down as
prime minister of Iraq this month, but the damage he has wrought will
define his country for decades to come. The stunning collapse of the
Iraqi state in its vast northern and western provinces may be
al-Maliki’s most significant legacy. After nine decades as the capital
of a unitary, centralized state, Baghdad no longer rules Kurdistan, nor
Fallujah, nor Mosul, and might never rule them again.
To
his likely successor, Haider al-Abadi, al-Maliki will bequeath an Iraqi
state that has reverted to the authoritarian muscle memory it developed
under Saddam Hussein. But it will be a state that effectively controls
not much more than half the territory Saddam did.
As
al-Maliki and his loyalists succeeded in consolidating control of the
government and pushing rivals out of power, they drove the
constituencies of those they excluded -- especially Sunni Arabs and Kurds -- into political opposition or armed insurrection. Their drive for
power alienated Iraqis across all communities from the central state
whose wards and clients they had once been, leaving almost no provincial
population trustful of the central government.
-- Dallas Morning News' editorial board, "The coming disintegration of Iraq" (Dallas Morning News).