Amid the 3rd Annual Smoke & Mirror Show (aka – the State of the Union address) last night, President Obama triumphantly announced that, “For the first time in nine years there are no Americans fighting in Iraq.”
Wonderful. So now that the “Great Satan” has left the premises, surely we can expect peace and prosperity to be breaking out all over the country…
 
REALITY CHECK (from last week’s Washington Post): Iraq violence up sharply since U.S. troops’ exit. Yes, it seems Mesopotamia is still a mess.

Violence appears to have increased sharply since U.S. troops left Iraq a month ago, as insurgents have unleashed a wave of furious bombings targeting Baghdad neighborhoods, Shiite pilgrims and police facilities in Sunni areas.
 
The deadly attacks have roots not only in the troops’ departure but also in a domestic political crisis that erupted in its wake. Shiite and Sunni leaders have squared off in a power struggle, one that analysts say insurgents are trying to turn into a full-scale civil war.
 
“They are not arbitrary attacks. They are sending messages that security is not under control,” said Wathiq al-Hashimi, an analyst in Baghdad who leads the Iraqi Group for Strategic Studies.

For the year ending Dec. 31, Iraqi officials recorded about 2,640 deaths, according to totals from the Interior and Health ministries. A nonprofit group, “Iraq Body Count,” which has monitored civilian deaths since 2003, estimated that 460 civilians died violently after the troops’ departure, a 35 percent increase over monthly averages for last year.

 
Just this week: Baghdad bombs kill 11 as Iraq violence surges (source: CBS News)
 

 
The WAPO article continues:

Before their departure, U.S. troops had ceded control of the country’s security to Iraqi forces. But the Americans’ presence remained critical, analysts said, because they shared intelligence capabilities with their Iraqi counterparts and their visibility signaled that the Americans had influence over Iraq’s leaders.
 
After the U.S. exit, “what changed is a mind-set,” said Michael Knights, an Iraq expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has been a consultant to the Defense Department.“The U.S. was now definitely gone. Therefore, all bets are off.”

 
After all the American blood and treasure spent in Iraq, how tragic that the country appears headed back to their 14th century barbarian ways, with a total disregard for the value of individual human lives. As long as their national motto remains “Allahu Akbar,” can we expect any different?
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Related:
 
More POTUS Prevarication – “Stable” Iraq?
 
US-based human rights group (Human Rights Watch) says Iraq is becoming a “police state” ~

“Iraqis are quickly losing ground on the most basic of rights, including the right to free speech and assembly,” said Samer Muscati, an Iraq researcher for the group. “Nowadays, every time someone attends a peaceful protest, they put themselves at risk of attack and abuse by security forces or their proxies,” he said.
 
Prison brutality, including torture in detention facilities, was a major problem throughout the year, the group’s annual report said.