COTW: Iraq Count is Up

US Person is not talking about its stock market either. The US occupation of Iraq did not bring peace to a country that was apparently only held together by a brutal dictator's grip on power. The sectarian schism between Sunni and Shia Muslims is producing a body count not reached since the bloody civil war of 2006-07 when US occupation troops were caught in the middle. Not only is Iraq not peaceful, but its islamist insurrection is spreading to other parts of the Middle East. The predominately Shiite Iraqi government supports the Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad while Sunni jihadists from Iraq fight with the Syrian rebels:

On Monday, 45 more people were killed in attacks across Iraq, the third day of large scale suicide bombings. The Al Qaeda affiliate, The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claims responsibility for most of the attacks. The death toll has reached 6,000 this year, the highest in nearly five years. There are reports that Shiite militia groups are rearming. Yet despite its lack of success in creating centralized sectarian states out of tribal nations the United States still refuses to accept the reality that its military presence is not appreciated in most Muslim countries. It is attempting to require Afghanistan's weak central government to accept a US garrison after its combat troops are scheduled to leave in 2014.