The Historical Context of the Iraq War in Perspective

The Antagonist has been meaning to post this for a while so, without further ado, here it is:

Once again, history reaches into the present to fashion the future. Is the war on terrorism a clash of civilizations? Yes, it is.

More specifically, there are three wars:

• The West, (and the rest of the World’s) need to keep the oil pumping
• The 1,344-year-old Sunni-Shi’a conflict over the truth of Islam. Nothing evidences this more than the willingness of each sect to kill the other in Iraq
• al-Qaida’s war of terror against foreign influence in Arab Countries and foreigners in Saudi Arabia.

There are two truths about Iraq, the truth of perception and the truth of history. More often than not, these two truths do not coincide.

Source: Bethlam Chronicles

One page, the blog-bite of 5,000 years of history.