British MP Say Iraq's Future Is Up To Iraqis

The United Nations is launching a major aid operation to help the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the fighting in northern Iraq. The Kurds there are fighting the advance of the Islamic State, the Sunni-led militant group that has taken over large parts of the country.

Rory Stewart served as a provincial governor in Iraq during the war and he's now a member of the British Parliament. He was in Iraq this week, visiting the front lines with the Kurdish fighters and also visiting some of the refugee camps.

Stewart believes the West is partly to blame for the situation in Iraq today, but he also thinks the West can help now. He tells Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson, "it's difficult to imagine anything more troubling than what we see in western Iraq at the moment."

But Stewart's bottom line is that only a new Iraqi government committed to change can really fix the situation.