No, It's a Tale of Only One Iraq
Today's WaPo has an editorial "Dying for an Iraq That Isn't" by Harold Meyerson. Here's a snipit:
We are fighting for a national government that is not national but sectarian, and has shown no capacity to govern. We are training Iraq's security forces to combat sectarian violence though those forces are thoroughly sectarian and have themselves engaged in large-scale sectarian violence. We are fighting for a nonsectarian, pluralistic Iraq, though whatever nonsectarian and pluralistic institutions existed before our invasion have long since been blasted out of existence. In the December 2005 parliamentary elections, the one nonsectarian party, which ran both Shiite and Sunni candidates, won just 8 percent of the vote.
Every day, George W. Bush asks young Americans to die in defense of an Iraq that has ceased to exist (if it ever did) in the hearts and minds of Iraqis. What Iraqis believe in are sectarian or tribal Iraqs -- a Shiite Iraq, a Sunni Iraq, an autonomous Kurdish Iraqi state, an Iraq where Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani or Moqtada al-Sadr or some other chieftain holds sway.
The Iraq that exists today is invisible to Bush administration eyes. It's hard to imagine how they manage to see that nation and this war the way they do, but I'm not armed with their special set of rose-colored glasses. Meyerson makes a good case (as much as I hate to admit or agree with it) for letting the Democrats off the hook for their inability to try and override Bush's veto. The votes weren't, as he notes, there to be found. I would argue that the votes could have been there if more of those elected by the anti-war vote of 2006 worked the Hill to remind those up for election in 2008 that this could be the one vote that could keep or end their jobs.Meyerson reminds us of the waning years of Vietnam, as Democrats slowly but surely pulled authority away from Nixon to fight that war. Hopefully Pelosi & Co., can do that here. But please, OH PLEASE, let them do it more rapidly and with more fire in their bellies. This is, above all, life and death. And after this Memorial Day's body count in Iraq, we don't need more reminders of that.
posted by Anonymous at 11:37 AM
3 Comments:
Iraq is quite reminiscent of Yugoslavia, another artificial country created by thoughtlessly drawing lines on a map to break up the Ottoman Empire at the close of WWI. Both were made up of warring ethnic factions. Both were held together only by the absolute power of a strong dictator. Both descended into violence once the dictator was no longer in control. Yugoslavia broke up into separate nations and that was for the best. It would probably be best for Iraq, too. However, the Turks fear an independent Kurdistan, the Sunni don't want to be left without a share in the oil. The Shia want to oppress the Sunni as vengeance for years of Sunni oppression under Saddam. And Bush is still trying to grab the oil. Oh what a fine mess!
the 'cat is absolutely right...there IS no united Iraq, CANNOT be a united iraq, because there is no iraqi nationality--just as there was no Yugoslav nationality in the end. in the case of Yugoslavia, once the relatively benign dictator exited, everyone moved into their corner and started snarling and talking in terms reminiscent of the incendiary circumstances of the first Yugoslavia, where the Serbs dominated the Croats. The same thing happened once Saddam was offed...the sunnis have insisted on their right to dominate, and the shiia have indicated that they will never again allow the sunni the right to rule. we will NEVER, and i mean NEVER, put this country back together because NO, we CAN'T all get along. it's a fact, and we really should get out before another thousand americans are killed.
Another one American is one too many.
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