Iraq’s Feckless Government Is Enabling an Islamic State Revival
The desultory reconstruction of Mosul and other Sunni areas risks creating a new pool of recruits.
Fertile ground for an ISIS revival.
Photographer: Dirk Waem/AFP/Getty Images
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi holds the world responsible for rebuilding Iraqi cities destroyed in the war to liberate them from Islamic State’s control. Noting the great sacrifice in blood by Iraqi forces in that war, Abdul Mahdi told a press conference this week, “The world has to repay the favor in terms of the security, stability and stopping the movement of displacement to other countries. The world has to repay the favor to Iraq to rebuild its areas.”
Abdul Mahdi is right. The world does have a direct interest in putting Iraq together again: the longer war-ravaged cities like Mosul remain in ruins, the more bitter their populations will become, and the more susceptible to the ideology of resentment and revenge peddled by terrorist groups. A revival of IS and al-Qaeda in Iraq would endanger us all.