Main focus of Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Obama officially ends Iraq war

In his address to the nation on Tuesday evening US President Barack Obama declared an end to its combat operations in Iraq. The US was poorly prepared for the war and leaves the country rife with bloody conflicts, commentators write.

The Times - United Kingdom

After the withdrawal of the last US combat troops from Iraq the conservative daily The Times writes that the mission should have been better planned: "Some problems that beset the international coalition could have been better foreseen. The tensions between the minority Sunni elite, the poorer Shia majority and the Kurds in the north were well known to anyone with experience of Iraq. The risk of civil war was clear. The need for the presence of many troops to keep the country calm after the fall of Saddam should have been no surprise. General Ray Odierno, the commander of US forces in Iraq, who steps down today, has acknowledged that 'we all came in very naive about Iraq'." (01/09/2010)

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ABC - Spain

Commenting on the official end of the Iraq war, the conservative daily ABC recalls the ambitious goals of the US before it invaded Iraq: "Obama has done well to avoid any kind of triumphalism because in the end the goal of spreading democratic elements to the countries of the Middle East is far from having been achieved. It may seem utopian, but there is no reasonable alternative to preserving the values of free societies in a global world and doing everything possible to extend those values to those societies where they have not yet taken root." (01/09/2010)

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Neue Zürcher Zeitung - Switzerland

With the official end of their military mission the US have left a country full of dashed hopes, the liberal conservative Neue Zürcher Zeitung writes, pointing to the troubled province of Diyala: "With its population mix of Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens, Diyala is a mirror of the religious and ethnic diversity of Iraq, as well as of its murderous conflicts. ... According to the local authorities a third of Diyala's roughly 1.2 million inhabitants have no access to drinking water. The reasons are many for the misery - the war and terror of recent years, a former regime that preferred to invest in weapons rather than in water mains, the prolonged UN embargo, the Americans whose planning was sometimes at odds with the situation on the ground, and a government that loves to present pretty strategies but is hardly able to put them into practice." (31/08/2010)

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All available articles from » Inga Rogg

Avvenire - Italy

The end of the US's mission could lead to civil war in Iraq and put Barack Obama's presidency at risk, fears the Catholic daily Avvenire: "The withdrawal of US combat troops from Baghdad is supposed to buff up the image of the US presidency ... .But it could backfire disastrously. ... The knot in Iraq has not been unravelled. On the contrary, it threatens to pull tighter. ... Terrorist attacks resulting in dozens of casualties are on the increase again and doubts about the ability of the new local security forces to ensure order are growing. ... The fear of a new, devastating civil war ... is spreading. Everything is at stake for Obama in the coming weeks - his political future and that of the Middle East. The withdrawal of troops from Iraq has been given the suggestive name 'New Dawn'. The struggling leadership of the United States of America needs its own new dawn." (01/09/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » U.S., » Middle East, » Iraq
All available articles from » Luigi Geninazzi

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