Five years after the United States and its allies invaded Iraq in a landmark preemptive strike, Iraq is mired in sectarianism and violence.

On March 20, 2003, the United States, supported by Britain and smaller forces from Australia and Poland, launched a massive land, air and sea attack on Iraq, bent on changing the political landscape in the Middle East. The objectives of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as enunciated by U.S. President George W. Bush, were to disarm Iraq, oust the Baathist regime in Baghdad and bring democracy to that long suffering country.

The Americans failed to find nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, but they did manage to overthrow the Iraqi government, headed by President Saddam Hussein. Whether they can build a civil society in a nation unaccustomed to democracy remains to be seen. Parenthetically, the war was not about oil, since Saddam, his animosity toward the United States notwithstanding, was only too glad to sell the precious commodity to the Americans. In other words, the Bush administration did not have to commit blood and treasure to secure Iraqi oil supplies.

Although it is now fashionable to dismiss the invasion as a catastrophic blunder, it made sense. Iraq was a serial aggressor, having precipitated a protracted war with Iran in 1980, briefly occupied Kuwait in 1990, fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War and encouraged Palestinian suicide bombers. Iraq was also a brutal dictatorship where the rule of law was flouted, where civil liberties were ignored and where minorities, such as the Kurds, were routinely oppressed.

Saddam, emboldened by ancient Babylonia’s empire, was driven by visions of subjugating the Middle East to his imperialist whims. He was a great destabilizing force, a megalomanic Arab leader whose naked ambitions exceeded his reach and whose intentions posed a clear and present danger to his neighbours.

Although the “coalition of the willing”  conquered Iraq in less than three weeks, with a minimum of casualties, the struggle for Iraq really began after Bush, striking a triumphant pose aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, declared an end “to all major combat operations” on May 1.

The optimism he projected was premature, to say the least. The United States soon faced an insurgency characterized by roadside ambushes and suicide bombings. The perpetrators, who exacted a fearsome toll, were disaffected Baathists who resented foreign intervention and yearned to return to power and starry-eyed jihadists – mainly Saudis – in the thrall of Al Qaeda’s Islamic fundamentalism.

With Baghdad’s fall in April, widespread looting broke out, leaving Iraqis with the disheartening impression that the Americans were not in full control. With an insufficient number of troops on the ground, the United States could not maintain order on a consistent basis. Donald Rumsfeld, then-U.S. secretary of defence, had disregarded a recommendation from a former army chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, that several hundred thousand soldiers would be required to pacify Iraq.

Not having heeded his sage advice, the United States paid the price for its misplaced confidence. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former commander of the U.S. expeditionary force in Iraq, said recently that the Bush administration’s handling of the war was “incompetent” and that its outcome has been “a nightmare with no end in sight.”

Facing the grim prospect of getting bogged down in a quagmire, the United States, in line with a proposal made by the Iraq Study Group in December 2006, has adopted a new strategy, popularly known as the “surge.”

Since January 2007, 30,000 additional U.S. troops, backed by Iraqi soldiers, have been ordered to stamp out violence, first in Baghdad and then in other trouble spots. If the Americans cannot end the suicide bombings, roadside attacks, assassinations, random murders and kidnappings, they will not be able to stabilize the country and persuade Shiite and Sunni Muslims to work together for its greater good.

The “surge” has succeeded to some extent. Gen. David Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, said recently that violent attacks have fallen by 60 per cent, a development that can be attributed to tougher U.S. tactics in the form of stepped up patrols and raids against insurgent strongholds, the formation of pro-American militias known as Awakening Councils, and the decision by the Mahdi Army – led by the virulently anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr – to observe a ceasefire.

But as Petraeus added in a note of caution, the security gains of the past several months have been “tenuous” and “fragile,” and “still much hard work” lies ahead. Suicide bombings still rip through Baghdad and other cities. Since the deployment of more U.S. troops to the Iraqi capital, the insurgents have shifted their focus from Anbar province to the provinces of Diyala and Salahuddin. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has established something of a beachhead in Iraq. Still, the downturn in violence has resulted in a reduction of U.S. casualties so far in 2008. Last year, 899 U.S. soldiers were killed, compared to 822 in 2006. Since the invasion, nearly 4,000 Americans have died in combat

Petraeus’ success in curbing violence, however, has not dramatically altered the dynamics of sectarianism. These rifts, which rarely surfaced during Saddam’s era, have displaced millions of Iraqis in fierce outbursts of ethnic cleansing. In Samarra, one of Islam’s holiest cities, terrorists firebombed a sacred shrine and pushed Iraq into civil war. In Baghdad, mixed neighbourhoods are almost a thing of the past. In Mosul, Sunnis have virtually erased the Kurdish presence in the western half of that northern city.

The National Intelligence Estimate, an assessment compiled by 16 American spy agencies, holds out little hope that Iraqi politicians – who define themselves by their ethnicity and religion – can bring the warring groups to heel. The current Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, has turned Iraq’s security forces into an instrument of Shiite domination and intimidation and failed to enact some important parliamentary bills, such as legislation to share oil revenues fairly. Maliki wants to empower the majority Shiite community, which was marginalized by Saddam and his predecessors. Maliki’s implicit sectarian agenda, which is clearly at odds with U.S. policy, has thwarted efforts to implant a model of democratic governance in Iraq. True, Iraqis have voted in national elections, elected a national assembly and provincial parliaments and adopted a constitution. But these achievements may become irrelevant if sectarianism persists.

Iraq, which was suffocated by United Nations sanctions prior to 2003, is still experiencing problems in improving the delivery of basic services such as electricity and health. By one account, 70 per cent of Iraqis do not even have access to adequate water supplies, while 90 per cent of Iraqi hospitals lack proper medical and surgical supplies.

Despite the unpopularity of the war in the United States, the Bush administration has no intention of withdrawing from Iraq in the foreseeable future. Robert Gates, the U.S. secretary of defence, has said that the United States will remain in Iraq for years to come, while Bush has warned that a hasty pullout would unsettle the region, encourage Al Qaeda and hand a victory to Iran. Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has sounded a similar theme, saying that a “premature” U.S. withdrawal would be dangerous. But if the Democrats defeat the Republicans in November’s presidential election, there will probably be a phased American pullout from Iraq.