New York: Iraq's embattled prime minister yesterday compared the fight for order in Iraq with the US Civil War almost 150 years ago, saying the current struggle "is perhaps even more complicated."
Nouri Al Maliki described the two countries as fighting for the principles of freedom, in battles that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
"Our struggle in Iraq is similar to the great American quest, and is perhaps even more complicated," he said in an opinion piece in yesterday's edition of The Wall Street Journal.
"A fundamental struggle is being fought on Iraqi soil between those who believe that Iraqis, after a long nightmare, can retrieve their dignity and freedom, and others who think that oppression is the order of things and that Iraqis are doomed to a political culture of terror, prisons and mass graves," Al Maliki said.
"Some of our neighbours have made this struggle more lethal still, they have placed their bets on the forces of terror in pursuit of their own interests," he added, without naming any of the countries.
Al Maliki said one key reform, the much-delayed oil law, is "well on its way" to being approved. The law would divide revenues among provinces based on their share of the total population. He added that the national budget this year is the largest in Iraq's history.
