A YEAR after the start of operations in Iraq not a day passes without a move by the Iraqi resistance. The United States victory, officially declared by President George Bush on 1 May 2003 and hailed as indisputable, is now openly questioned. The post-war period has degenerated into another, radically different war. Yet its political, military, social and international characteristics are such that its end and its outcome are uncertain. What went wrong?

With the benefit of hindsight it is easier to appreciate the consequences of the decisions that US leaders took before and just after the 2003 war. It is clear that their decisions had little to do with the official reasons for the conflict, which are still the focus of debate. The US administration made no attempt to conceal the real political, strategic and economic aims of the war. It set out to replace Saddam Hussein with a leader who publicly favoured US interests; and to complete its strategic encirclement of Iran and the Syria-Lebanon-Palestine block. It was determined to gain direct control of production and distribution of Iraq’s huge oil reserves and reduce its excessive dependence on Saudi Arabia which had, since 11 September 2001, no longer seemed a trustworthy partner.

These objectives, openly discussed by US leaders before the start of hostilities, led to equally obvious conclusions. Iraq would become a federal state, losing most of its armed forces. Its central government would be as weak as possible, split between Kurdish, Sunni and Shia communities. On this point there was some controversy because of the mingling of ethnic groups - Kurds and Arabic-speakers in the north, Sunni and Shia Muslims in Baghdad (1). But US leaders were determined to achieve their aims. They had to make allowance for support provided by the two main Kurdish parties, which demanded a form of self-government as close as possible to outright independence (see Kurdistan: the highlands of Iraq). They also assumed that the Shia community (...)