“Mr. Hussein used sectarianism and nationalism as tools against his internal enemies when he was weak. Today's Iraqi Shiite parties are doing worse: they are legitimizing their rule on a sectarian basis. The idea of Iraq as a multiethnic country is being abandoned, and the same dynamic is at work in Syria.”

—  Kanan Makiya

"The Arab Spring started in Iraq", The New York Times (April 6, 2013)

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American orientalist 1949

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