Abstract

Eleven years after the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime, the prospects of a “new Iraq” able to become a beacon of prosperity, stability and democracy for the whole Middle East crumbled under a series of centripetal and centrifugal forces that threaten the very idea of an Iraqi state. How did the country fall into the current spiral of violence and hatred? Who bears the responsibility? And, even more important, is the Iraqi polity doomed to fail or is it possible to reverse the course of history? If so, which are the measures the Iraqi leaders and the international system should implement to prevent the definitive sundering of Iraq?

Andrea Plebani is Ph.D. Research Fellow at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart (Milan) and Associate Fellow at ISPI