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What Iraq needs to survive

Social disintegration and other issues facing Iraq require a nationwide reform campaign.

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Displaced Iraqi children play at the Bilad al-Arab elementary school, which has been turned into a housing complex for almost 31 families who fled from Islamic State violence in Mosul, in Baghdad, Oct. 22, 2014. — REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

In describing the Iraqi dilemma since 2003, some Iraqis have been attributing the problem to political rather than social factors, whereby all disputes were ascribed to political causes. The prevailing thought among these Iraqis is that Iraq did not suffer from any social, sectarian, religious or ethnic rifts that contributed to this fractious state of affairs.

Other Iraqis believe that the problem Iraq is facing is purely social; that the country does not, in fact, exist, and that its formation under the Sykes-Picot Agreement necessitated the unification of disparate peoples incapable of coexisting.

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