Iraq

There are two histories of Iraq; the one before the Third Persian Gulf War and the history leading up to Saddam Hussein's control of the country. Iraq, like Afghanistan and many other Middle Eastern countries, was born out of a British Mandate in 1920 that combined three provinces of the collapsed Ottoman Empire (Baghdad, Basra and Mosul). This left four distinct cultural groups (Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis and secular Arabs) forced into one country. After independence from Britain in 1932 and the fall of a monarchy in 1958, numerous coups eventually led to a Ba'ath controlled government and Saddam Hussein's takeover. The first gulf war fought between Iraq and Iran from 1980 to 1988 saw the US support of Iraq and further consolidation of Ba'ath power in Iraq. After the Second Gulf war and the defeat of the Iraqi Army by the U.S., the US encouraged significant uprisings by the southern Shiites and northern Kurds. The US did not support these uprising which were subsequently put down violently. In the following years, suspicion grew of Iraq developing weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's failure to comply with UN resolutions ultimately led to the US invasion in 2003. After toppling the Ba'ath regime, the US disbanded the entire Iraqi Police force and Military. Lawlessness ensued, driven by long standing sectarian violence.

Violence has decreased significantly since the US Surge. The US military took on a strategy of employing local militias to secure their own communities, which aided in addressing the soaring joblessness and put the long-since disbanded military and police force back to work. Currently, jihadist groups that seek to implement a Sharia-governed Iraq attempt to incite secular violence through targeted attacks against Sunnis and Shi'as as well as attempt to undermine the current Iraqi government's legitimacy with attacks against key sites and personnel.