In 2003, I served as the U.S. Coalition official responsible for “administering” the province of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. At the time, I was struck by how the different communities intermarried, spoke each other’s languages, and loved each other’s cultures.

In an attempt to defuse tensions emerging from the struggle for power after the overthrow of Saddam’s regime, I organized a cultural event at the Kirkuk museum. For one evening, many of the artifacts that had been looted from the museum and that were being kept in people’s homes were put back on display. Groups put on traditional performances. The night culminated with everyone spontaneously coming forward to dance the dabka , hand in hand, in a long line.

“This is Kirkuk,” a member of the provincial council told me. “This is who we are.” But the next day, the museum once again stood empty, no longer a place entrusted to protect and commemorate the rich diversity and common heritage of all Iraqis.

The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and misguided policies collapsed the brittle state. Sadly, the new elites did little to foster Iraqi identity and to celebrate inter-communal coexistence. Instead, they focused narrowly on sectarian and ethnic narratives, pitting communities against each other.

Today, Iraq is poised to lose whole communities that have been a facet of the country’s landscape for millennia. In the land where history was first written, shrines, monuments and other evidence of 8,000 years of multicultural heritage are once again under threat of being erased.

Read the article “Will Fate of Iraqi Jews Soon Befall Other Minorities?” on forward.com.