Yes, Prime Minister Maliki has contributed to worsening Sunni Arab-Shia relations. But he is not operating in a vacuum. Maliki should not be the designated fall guy to gloss over other causes, including our contributions to the regeneration of al Qaeda in Iraq.
Al Qaeda itself is to blame for being a terrorist organization in the first place, motivated by the hatred of Islamo-fascist ideology that has not been defeated. Fighting them under Bush has dented the reputation of jihadis in the Moslem world (because so many Moslems were victims of jihadi violence) but has not eliminated the core of support for jihad; but neither has the Cairo outreach eliminated that support.
Iraq's Sunni Arabs share blame for having a lot of their community pining for the glory days of Saddam who oppressed the majority Shia and Kurds (largely Sunni but not Arab) for the benefit of some of the Sunni Arabs who supported Saddam.
Too many Sunni Arabs either support the jihadis to strike at the Shias or are too afraid to resist the jihadis. This active and passive assistance has enabled al Qaeda to survive. This applies to Iraq and the larger mostly Sunni Arab Moslem world.
Let's add our failure to support the revolt in Syria when Assad was reeling. Refusing to intervene has allowed al Qaeda to spread into Syria, which in turn has allowed al Qaeda to send support to the Iraqi wing of al Qaeda.
And remember Iran is undermining Iraqi sovereignty and promoting Shia chauvinism.
And why is Iran doing this? Because we aren't in Iraq to block Iran.
The Obama administration bears some responsibility here which helps explains Maliki's actions.
In 2011, we left Iraq. We didn't try to stay. Had we stayed with at least 10,000 troops in garrison and training roles to anchor a robust civilian presence, we could have helped Maliki resist Iranian pressure and helped promote Sunni Arab-Shia reconciliation efforts.
And Maliki, seeing we didn't really have much interest in staying after 2011, couldn't be seen as asking for our help too hard and have us leave anyway.
So Maliki, seeing us disinterested in Iraq and far away on the one hand and Iran there (as it has been for thousands of years) and very interested in Iraq, had to appease the non-Arab Iranians because Iraq was still too weak to resist Iran.
Our presence could have bridged that power gap to protect Iraq in addition to the role of training Iraqis and helping rule of law gain ground in Iraq to support the promotion of democracy.
It takes a village to raze an infant democracy.
But rather than focusing on how to escape blame for what is going wrong in Iraq, I'd prefer to work the problems and defend the military win we achieved. It is far from too late to fight this campaign to a successful conclusion.
UPDATE: Maliki, at least, is committed to winning the war no matter how long it takes:
“The Iraqi army and tribesmen are defending the Iraqi people and their holy places, mosques, churches and honor when battling terrorism,” Maliki said, adding “that the war [against terrorism] will be long and will continue.”
He said that the “battle will end in victory,” describing those battling al-Qaeda-linked group as “martyrs.”
Yeah, what an awful leader. "Victory" indeed. He lacks the nuance to appreciate the need to "responsibly end" the war with al Qaeda. Besides, it's not like they are Core al Qaeda from Pakistan. They don't even count!
