Mr. Kaplan refers to military regimes that followed sectarian breakdowns in Syria without mentioning the C.I.A.'s part in that country's destabilization.
In an interview with VICE News after visiting parliamentarians and church officials in London, Bashar Warda, archbishop of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, attributed the rise of the Islamic State to the sectarian tensions and social breakdown which followed the Iraq War.
Many are painfully aware that the breakdown of society into sectarian groups has echoes of earlier tragedies, in Bosnia and neighboring Iraq.
However, power is often bitterly contested along sectarian lines leading to regular governance breakdowns and a long list of grievances – including complaints of rampant corruption, sclerotic services and a bloated, inefficient public sector.
Instead, as Jon Snow's compelling TV documentary Hidden Iraq underlined this week, they have seen the physical and social destruction of their country, mass killing, tens of thousands thrown into jail without trial, rampant torture, an epidemic of sectarian terror attacks, pauperisation, and the complete breakdown of basic services and supplies.
Without the return of real power to the center, the ascent of sectarian and ethnic politics in Iraq to the point of complete societal breakdown cannot be checked.
Egypt also now faces a breakdown in law and order, a crackdown on free expression, an increase in sectarian tensions and a collapsing economy.
Officials refused to give a breakdown clarifying who died in the blasts and who was killed in reprisals to avoid stoking more sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims.
Liberation begat a bloody breakdown of law and order, followed by — in addition to economic growth and pockets of immense wealth — wars, sectarian atrocities and nuclear saber-rattling, grand and petty corruption, enduring poverty and disillusionment.
Parliament expresses its "deep concern" about the complete breakdown of law and order in the CAR, followed by the absence of the rule of law and sectarian violence.
