As do others, I have feelings of love towards the Land of the Two Rivers, maybe due to Iraq's heritage and history throughout decades, especially the Abbasside era, or due to Baghdad's spaces, gates and history which was filled with sciences and arts. Many read about Iraqi's history, geography, sectarian diversity and literary, artistic and intellectual richness. Many love Baghdad, Mosul, Basra, Najaf, Karbala and Shatt al-Arab with a pure love for the cities representing the civilizations of the land between the two rivers, with its ethnic diversity that features Arabs, Akkadians, Sumerians, Assyrians and Babylonians. But Nouri al-Malliki and his group are ruining this overwhelming love with sectarian and denominational policies. Many have memorized Iraq's history and the dialects of its people, and gasp today when they see the terrorism, sectarianism, nepotism and public settlement of scores being carried out in it and are publically led by Al-Maliki and his government. There are many who hope to see the old image of Iraq restored, to replace the image of the killing and oppression practiced there today. In 2003, I was one of the journalists who headed to Baghdad almost two weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Saudi journalists were residing in the Mustansariyah University in Baghdad and writing their news and reports about the role of the Saudi field hospital specialized in operating on the wounded and injured due to the American war. I stayed with those colleagues for two nights only, before colleague Maysar al-Shamri called colleague Abbas Radi, the director of Al-Hayat's office in Baghdad, to seek housing for me. I then got Room 508 in the Palestine Hotel. At the time, I wrote numerous reports and investigations which were published in this paper, and provided coverage for Al-Hayat-LBC Television. During my presence there, I contacted a good friend called Nabil al-Bayati, whose father is a close friend. Nabil and his father lived in exile in Britain since the beginning of the 1990s, after they fled Saddam's regime. And when this regime collapsed, I called him from the center of Baghdad and told him it was time to come home. Three months later, he called me from Iraq, ecstatic about being back in the country and working as a translator with the American troops. I was happy for him, knowing how much he loved his people and country and how nostalgic he had been. But terrorism caught up with him and he was assassinated one morning while sipping his coffee in a popular café in a side street in Baghdad. I was devastated to lose a friend whom I believe I convinced to return to Iraq and work in his country. Nabil the noble has left us, and there are so many other noble people in Iraq resisting today the hell of Al-Maliki's government and his likes. Around four years after Nabil's assassination, I met another Iraqi friend who had been living in London since the 1980s and who was planning on returning to Iraq after he spent his life abroad. I remained silent and tongue-tied, pained by my grief over Nabil, thus advising this friend to be very careful. This honest friend went to Iraq and quickly returned to London, cursing an Iraq that is ruled by Al-Maliki and controlled by Iran's militias, as he said. He added that he did not see the Iraq he was dreaming of, but rather a graveyard falsely dubbed Iraq. This friend, who asked me not to mention his name, swore that Saddam's days were better than those of the latter, whom he described as being spiteful towards everything. What is happening in Iraq? Who is controlling it? The people of the country or Iran?! Where is Al-Maliki leading the Arab identity of the Land of the Two Rivers? A while ago, Iraqi writer Jassem al-Mannah wrote in this paper an article headlined: “Iraq: from the hegemony of the Takritis to that of the Karbala'is and Najafis." In this article he spoke with great bitterness and anger about the practices of Al-Maliki's government, Iran's interventions and the behavior of those monopolizing power. He added that the Karbala and Najaf populations – especially the Iranian families enjoying religious and economic influence – used religion to control the populations in the Center and the South, created religious occasions and blew the already existing ones out of proportion because this served them economically. He continued that this was clearly seen whenever a dispute erupted between two people, considering that the first weapon brandished by the Najafis in the face of the Arab Southerners was “southeastern hillbilly." Some – according to the writer - even went further addressed the Southerners by saying: “You are our servants and we are your masters," indicating there were many ways and weapons used to subjugate, recruit and exploit the simple Arabs of the Center and the South. Today, the Iraqis are talking about Al-Maliki's tyranny, arrogance, the corruption of his entourage, his hatred for the Arabs and his love for and nepotism in favor of the Persians. This hatred does not only affect the Sunnis, but also the Arab Shiites, and this is the same approach of the Persian state in its oppression of the Arabs of Ahwaz! Al-Maliki is practicing dictatorship under different headlines, to the point where all that is heard is his voice and Tehran's orders. In addition, he turned the Iraqi special operations forces into a private guard dubbed “Al-Maliki's Fidayeen." Al-Maliki's practices are putting the last nail in the coffin of national partnership and the country's stability, which recently pushed the Iraqiya Coalition to threaten to withdraw from the political process and boycott the next governmental session, in protest against the arrest of the guards of Finance Minister Rafeh al-Issawi, as well as the sectarian pursuit of Vice President Tarek al-Hachemi. What does Al-Maliki want? What did he leave in Iraq, after he placed it in an advanced position among the internationally-classified ten failed states, while insisting on spreading division and sectarianism throughout the country? [email protected] twitter | @JameelTheyabi
