One of the expressions that were often reiterated when warning against the likely American strike against the Syrian regime is the call "not to turn Syria into another Iraq." For Syria to encounter Iraq's fate would be the epitome of devastation and pure degradation for it as a state and society, as assured by those who issued the warnings. But there is a difference between what the latter want to say and current Iraqi reality. The second reality can be summarized by the fact that ten years after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, it is hard to find one ray of hope in the general scene. The unannounced civil war is ongoing between the Sunnis and the Shiites and corruption has reached astronomical highs, amid the quasi total absence of basic services in a country with an annual budget of $117 billion. Parliament is refusing to reconsider the retirement pensions of its members although this has become a cause for the deepening of political divide, while the prime minister is expanding his prerogatives and powers amid parliament's apparent inability to perform the role required of it. The great commotion facing any observer of political life does not actually reflect the presence of any such "life," which should exist in a country that is supposed to enjoy political plurality and sectarian and ethnic diversity. And what is deeply surprising is this fatalism with which the Iraqis perceive their disastrous situation. It has become difficult to count the number of booby-trapped cars exploding in the streets of Iraqi cities every day, knowing that 18 of them were blown up in one day last week, resulting in the fall of more than 80 victims. This is not in addition to the attacks against the security forces and the killing of entire families for sectarian reasons, as well as the attack on Al-Ashraf camp where the members of the Iranian Mujahedeen-E-Khalq organization reside. But all of this – in addition to other factors - does not appear to be a good enough motive to seek a political settlement among the Iraqis. Security explanations are prevailing in Baghdad, where there is talk about Al-Qaeda's regaining of the initiative in a worst security setback in the country since the 2006 and 2007 incidents. As to how the situation deteriorated, who will bear the consequences and how this state can be exited, they remain questions without answers. The above quick recap is what can be drawn from the daily information in the news. However, it is not even close to the actual complexity of the situation. Iraq, with its state and society, appears to have received a harsh blow that paralyzed it and rendered it incapable of standing back up. Added to that is the role of foreign powers engaged in a conflict on Iraqi soil, in a way exceeding its interests and border. Is this the Iraq whose example must not be followed by Syria? Probably not. What is odd at the level of the warnings against Syria's meeting of the Iraqi fate is that they are only being issued by one political side, i.e. the one loyal to Bashar al-Assad's regime, while the Western rejection of the strike stems from different concerns. Indeed, the supporters of the strike fear one specific issue, i.e. the regime's collapse due to a foreign attack, without pointing to the fact that the miserable American failure to rebuild the Iraqi state constituted a precious gift to Iran, which did not hesitate to impose its hegemony over it. Hence, the regime's collapse is the real problem. As for the fear surrounding the spread of anarchy, it is probably due to the impossibility for Iran to control Syria in the post-Bashar al-Assad phase, thus pushing the terrorist groups – with all that they are perpetrating in Iraq - to play a role in warning against Al-Assad's collapse without taking into account the civil dimension of the violence in Iraq.
