Baghdad Turns 1245

Last week marked the anniversary of Baghdad's construction in 145 Hijri (762 A.D.) by the second Abbasid Caliph, Abu Ja'far Al-mansur.

During the last 13 centuries, Baghdad was occupied 20 times making the U.S. the 21st foreign occupier. But whether it was occupied by Hulagu Khan, Tamerlane, the Safavids, the Ottomans, or the Brits, Iraqis managed to kick out their foreign occupiers and take their country back.

The last 20 times Iraqis kicked out their invaders, no "full scale war between Sunnis and Shiites" erupted, and Iraqis didn't beg for the international community to save them from themselves, and protect them from their own cousins.

When Baghdad was under the British occupation, the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George warned of a civil war in Iraq if the occupation troops withdrew and gave the country back to its people.

But Guess what... they didn't have a civil war. In fact, all Iraqis united in a huge revolution in 1920 that ended the occupation.

The U.S. government can either set a bilateral timetable for a complete withdrawal from Iraq, or continue its current unilateral interventionist policy and await yet another rooftop evacuation scenario.