Abstract

The spark of the ethnic and religious civil war in Iraq was planned, motivated and fueled by the American strategy to divide the Iraq and turn it into a failed and broken state that would enable the US to control the whole country and prohibit its progress from being a vital and leading player in the Middle East and the world. The US government has tried to secure the continuation of American economic and military supremacy globally, and the US invasion and occupation of Iraq was part of this imperialistic project, which was pursued under the pretext of the war on terrorism and the elimination of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that have never been found. This thesis explains the integrated relationship between religion and politics and it shows the abuse and manipulation of religion by politics, foreign governments and colonizing countries in order to create cascades of ethnic and religious civil wars that divide the invaded country and turn it into a failed state. Furthermore, the thesis attempts to identify what I – as an Iraqi citizen who lived in Iraq before, during and after the 2003 American invasion – believe are the real causes behind the emergence of radical Islamic groups and to present the massive destruction of the Iraqi state in all aspects after the country’s invasion and occupation. It also explains the extermination of Iraqi Christians and the ongoing terrible consequences of replacing the secular social Baath Party rule with the radical Islamic Shia Coalition which enjoys American support after the country’s invasion.