From the AP
Even after the United States spent billions of dollars training the armed forces during its 2003-2011 military presence in Iraq, the 1 million-member army and police remain riven by sectarian discontents, corruption and a lack of professionalism.
Many Sunnis in the armed forces are unprepared to die fighting on behalf of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-led government, which many in their minority community accuse of sharp bias against them. The Islamic State has exploited this by touting itself as the Sunnis' champion against Shiites.
Seriously, read the whole thing. Any neocons out there who thought that the Blair/Bush "nation building" doctrine was ever going to work clearly ignored the fact that the Sunnis were a minority and that unlike many countries don't view minorities as having equal rights, and the only reason that Iraq held together was because Saddam Hussein ruled the place with an iron fist.
We've now got a situation where some guys who make Al-Qaeda look like Bilko are running over bits of Iraq, probably trying to create a greater Islamic caliphate instead of just some gangster with really bad taste. Well done, idiots.
Debate Magazine
