Iraqi Culpability In Art Destruction?

Jim Hoagland writes that while Americans should have done something to protect Iraqi art, “the rush to condemn Americans for looting and destruction committed by Iraqis obscures fundamental questions about social responsibility and accountability in Iraq and throughout the Arab world. The debate about responsibility for the museum’s losses goes to the heart of the need for urgent moral and psychological change in the greater Middle East. An important question is going unasked in the rush to condemn: If looting was so predictable, what did the Iraqis – and particularly the staff of the museum – do to protect the museum’s valuable antiquities?”