When the World Trade Centers were destroyed on September 11, 2001, the world saw unprecedented images of terror, devastation and horror. Following the attacks, conflicting U.S. views of the Iraqi nation, ruled by dictator Saddam Hussein and his Ba'athist party, came to a boiling point. Since Saddam Hussein refused to allow the United Nations to inspect suspected chemical weapons laboratories in Iraq, the United States and a group of countries including the United States, Great Britain and Poland (called the Coalition), decided that the best course of action, to preserve international security, he had to invade and stop him. The war in Iraq lasted eight long years and was militarily considered a success by the Coalition. Coalition troops suffered only 4,185 casualties, while the Iraqi insurgency lost around 36,000 insurgents killed and many more wounded. However, after the Coalition left Iraq in 2011, cracks began to form in the system the Coalition had left behind. Although it would appear that the Coalition won the war militarily, administratively and tactically, the war was far from a success (Encyclopedia Britannica). The Coalition invasion of Iraq following the September 11 attacks failed, not because of the service rendered by the soldiers who fought valiantly, but because of the Coalition's failure to establish a new government that would balance the power between Sunni and Shia Muslims, their human rights violations during the campaign, and the Coalition had no exit strategy and lacked preventative measures against the rise of terrorist groups, such as ISIS. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay One of the main reasons the Iraq War was a failure, in an administrative and logistical sense, was the Coalition's inability to establish a balanced government between the major religious demographic groups of Sunni and Shia Islam. Since the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, there has been intense conflict between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam. At the time of Muhammad's death there was a succession crisis, in addition to the rapid growth of religion in the area. “Some believed that a new leader should be chosen by consensus; others thought that only the prophet's descendants should become caliph. The title passed to a trusted aide, Abu Bakr, although some thought it should have gone to Ali, the prophet's cousin and son-in-law. Ali eventually became caliph after Abu Bakr's two successors were assassinated” (Harney). When Ali's son tried to assume the title after his father's assassination, he was martyred by forces belonging to the current caliph or leader who usurped the throne from his father. People who believed that Ali and his descendants were the true leaders of the Muslim people called themselves Shiites, or followers of Ali. Sunnis, who constitute the majority of the Islamic world, follow the line of the caliphs established since the death of Muhammad and have a strong antipathy for the Shiites (Harney). The religious demographics of Iraq are as follows: 65% Shia Islam, 30% Sunni Islam, with the remaining 5% made up of religious minorities (Mohamed). The US government, however, did not truly understand the long-standing animosity between the two factions and established an all-Shiite government. With the Iraqi government still subject to Shia technical law, many Sunnis have joined the uprisings against the government. Several coalition soldiers told stories of Shiite government soldiers massacring Sunni civilians in gruesome ways. TheLieutenant Colonel (LTC) Dwight Chrvala, an Iraq War veteran, says he had to interrupt an event in the Iraqi camp in which Shiite Iraqi government soldiers were brutally attacking Sunni civilians. He said: “They were cutting off the hands of all the males of military age in the village they rounded up. They took rebars and beat them to death. We were told not to intervene in many of these cultural conflicts among Iraqis. This kind of thing happened much more frequently than you would expect” (Chrvala). Incidents like these have fueled resentment and growing hatred for the Shia government, especially as many powerful Sunni-majority countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey, are willing to help finance a Sunni insurgency and destroy the Shiite government. If the Coalition had considered maintaining equal representation, the large Sunni minority would not have rebelled and caused all the major problems occurring in the country today. But unfortunately, the government structures installed by the US-led Coalition are actually failing and the northern part of the country is trying to secede. There are strong insurgencies in the south that the government cannot defeat. By installing an exclusively Shiite government and completely ignoring the significant minority, the war has become a futile effort for democracy in Iraq. Another major issue that caused the Iraq War to fail was the failure to prevent human rights violations by coalition forces. and Shiite Iraqi forces. These abuses were seriously dangerous for the stability of the region, because they had the effect of creating more rebels. LTC Chrvala explained, “When someone you know is beaten, maimed, or killed, you are much more likely to want to take up arms and kill those responsible” (Chrvala). The human rights violations that occurred during the Iraq War, perpetrated primarily by those who were there to help the Iraqis, were certainly more than enough to provoke such an insurrection. The scandal at Abu Ghraib (a prison for rebel detainees in Iraq), has created violent and burning animosity for coalition troops on Iraqi soil. Iraqi detainees were beaten, horribly mutilated, forced to eat their own excrement and dragged around naked. Several inmates died, and court-martial charges were filed against prison administrators as a result. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done and when the abuses were seen by the world, many joined the uprisings to fight the people who would commit such horrific atrocities against defenseless prisoners. (Hersch). Another terrible example of human rights violations that had a significant impact was the Haditha massacre. In 2005, a squad of US Marines killed twenty-four unarmed civilians. They told authorities they were under intense combat stress before the massacre began and thought the victims were armed. There was intense protest from locals because the killed civilians were well known in the area, and when the world saw the horrific images of innocent families gunned down, global anger increased. After no real charges were brought against the Marines, the anger increased even more, the number of rebel members increased significantly (CNN). Coupled with incidents like the one recalled by LTC Chrvala (and the frequency with which such incidents have occurred) one can observe an increase in hatred towards the Coalition and Iraqi troops and an increase in insurgent recruitment. Due to these events,.