Can Violence End in Iraq?

A wave of car bombs and mortars in Baghdad's Sadr City district has left at least 144 people dead and more than 200 injured, Iraq police have said.

Such a rate of death occurring daily is a loud call for internal, regional and international cooperation to restore peace in Iraq. Violent attacks have become a routine in a worrying way even for people living far from Iraq because of the human cost. It's high time key players in the region joined together to put an end to such atrocity out of human consideration.

Linking the human situation in Iraq to political differences will simply amplify the daily risks. It's better for all the politicians to see themselves as a part of UN Red Cross to have the feel of what must humanely be done regardless of political calculations.

The end of violence in Iraq is in the hands of the Iraqis themselves. The daily atrocities are committed mainly by Iraqis against Iraqis, leaving families after families in a state of mourning . Iraq should be a country where life is celebrated. It shouldn’t be a country where killed people are daily counted, with the subsequent silly figures and graphs calculating the ratio of deaths and comparing them to past periods.

Regional cooperation to end the violence in this country can succeed by disarming the militias and creating a national army that can secure peace in Iraq with or without foreign forces. These will sooner or later leave Iraq. Iraqis will be left to their fate, likely to continue living in a bloodbath if they can't reach a national consensus for durable peace.