Alan: While the new millennium was still in single digits, it was clear that Iran had won The Iraq War. In the following interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross, journalist Dexter Filkins (pictured above) says Iraq is again in a state of open civil war and that Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has become a neo-dynastic thug at least as vicious as Saddam Hussein and immeasurably more determined to inflame sectarian hatred. Whatever The Butcher of Baghdad's faults, his personal preference was for domestic tranquility over domestic upheaval. Maliki on the other hand nourishes upheaval in what could be prelude to some sort of final solution to the "Sunni problem." (This last sentence is my surmise, not Filkins'.)
New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins finds an increasingly authoritarian prime minister — Nouri al-Maliki — sectarian violence, and concern for the future. Iraq holds parliamentary elections Wednesday.
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. To find out what the U.S. left behind in Iraq since pulling out less than two and a half years ago, my guest, Dexter Filkins, returned there for four weeks in January and February. What he found, according to his latest article in the New Yorker, is an increasingly authoritarian leader, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a return of sectarian violence, and a nation worried about its future.
Part of the country is now under the control of Islamist extremists. Iraq holds parliamentary elections tomorrow. Maliki is seeking a third term. Many Iraqis told Filkins that Maliki's sectarianism has driven Iraq to the edge of civil war. Dexter Filkins covered the war in Iraq for the New York Times and is now a staff writer for the New Yorker. His 2008 book, "The Forever War," was about his experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dexter Filkins, welcome back to FRESH AIR. Why did you want to go back to Iraq?
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