Cole in Salon.com
My article, "Saving Iraq: Mission Impossible," is out in Salon.com.
Excerpt:
' Hopes for a breakthrough hinge on the assumption that al-Maliki will be able to act more decisively than his failed predecessor, Ibrahim Jaffari, in crucial areas: putting together a government acceptable to all the parties, restoring a state monopoly on the use of force (i.e., disbanding militias), preventing sectarian killings, restoring basic services, and resolving the explosive question of federalism. Al-Maliki seems more aware than Jaffari of the urgency of these problems. But the painful fact is that they are almost certainly beyond his ability to solve.
Despite the hype that will attend the formation of a new government, whenever it finally comes about, there is little prospect that it will make a decisive difference. Al-Maliki seems doomed to preside over a lot of violence and chaos, and can only hope to make a difference at the margins. And the increasing hostility of the Shiites in the south to the Anglo-American troop presence will put the question of when they are leaving on the new parliament's docket. '
Read the whole thing.
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/11/2006 12:04:00 AM
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4 Comments:
I called it "Mission Impossible" the very day I saw the "Mission Accomplished" sign.
And whatever happened to the "roadmap to nowhere", er, I mean the "roadmap to peace"?
In case anyone is looking for a vacation destination, we have the ROAD TO NOWHERE right here in western North Carolina. A good place to contemplate the roadmap to nowhere.
MI-3
Just saw the Cruise version of "MI-III" last night. It was the usual wHollyweird version of taking some Americans into a 3rd World country and blowing it apart with virtual impunity. Then Cruise takes on the Vatican, again without any adverse repercussions. Even Shanghai was surprised.
That the misadventures in Iraq have become "Mission Impossible" is about the 3rd such attempt, given the English intervention followed by two tosses by the Americans (with their Briton mentors sniggering behind the Americans' backs, no doubt). To be sure, the intervention has gone on too long and the solutions to on-going problems too overwhelming, even if the administrations HAD spent the allocated monies.
Should we be duped and suppose that things are getting better, it is a matter of not knowing how worse it really is. Random kidnapping and killings, a population that once knew a better life, emerging majorities that know better, and on and on are indications that there is no sense of lawfulness or desire for harmoniousness within the country's borders. This applies to the Kurds in the North as well who have once more reignited the Turks' (and Iranis') wrath, the same Turks who have had no problems in the past invading Iraq or Syria or wherever to quell the PKK or others who seek to further pare the remnants of the Ottoman Empire.
"That the new Iraq's seething religious and ethnic hatreds and the increasing mobilization of neighborhood-based militias can be fought" beggars belief in the sense that the old Iraq's seething religious and ethnic hatreds were considered resolved or resolvable. The article on G Bell refers to this. Democracy is a great thing and being able to vote in a particular religious persuasion is one of the detrimental benefits. This is the focus of the Middle East where exclusive religious purity is something that has to do with "democratic" principles rather than assuring inclusiveness of all parties concerned.
What we notice about the tendencies of people in that part of the World, of long- (or short-)term residence, that tendency to bring long-standing quarrels and bickerings to the present, seeking to deal with them as if they happened yesterday. In a very real sense, reinitiating hostilies from times long past DOES make them current, making any future nothing more than a blend of past-made-present feuds into the realm of current affairs.
But, after all, "When asked by a reporter recently why Iraqi politicians argued so much over a new government, President Jalal Talabani quipped: "This is the Iraq our British friends created."" Not only have the British guaranteed that the Iraqis got to inherit the "friends'" creation but the Americans have as well. This will not exonerate any of them for their short-sightedness and overall responsibility for their role in setting up any "Western" assistance for failure. Even G Bell chose to demur, fading from public life when her countrymen decided to use bombs and other forms of "shockin' awe" to stifle dissent. Her retreat into the museums and collections of artifacts was one of the first acts of discrediting her contribution the country. But, is she unique in the respect of having been intimate with the country and its people, only to be ignored by so many leaders?
So What Are We Waiting For?
The US is running a very expensive futility in Iraq.
If our troops mounted up today and all started driving or flying out of Iraq, we could be gone before a new government is formed.
They can re-form and base forever in Israel or whatever other country will have them.
Let's roll!
Agreed. If the chaos amd intercinine squablles of the religious and tribal factions cannot be settled then a unified and unoccupied Iraq is ana impossibility. the alternatives; A civil war is not to be permitted and therefore the US or Some other presence must be continued with the boil never being lanced but never being cured either: or; Iraq is split into three, Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish with appropraite and suitable relocations and the oil feilds persided over by a triumverate body comprised of the leadership from all three factions, with equal judciary powers. If the understanding is reached that with three overseers there is more liklihood of oil monies actually reaching the three regions alomst untouched and therefore a greater and open sharing of revenue than that of any central government could generate.
Whether the fragility of long held animosities could be held in check for long is debatable, especially if Iran enter the picture, which I dont think they would at this time. So, only two options really to prevent total collapse. Continued occupation while the government attempts to acheive stability in an environment that will never be conducive to stability with an occupying force in country, or, partition but the wealth shared evenly and, because if there are three then no "one" can cheat the people because the wealth is equal and who could trust the other to chaet evenly and equally without the "people" finding out. If the Government that is trying to form today could recognize and make adjustments to tolerate or at least acknowledge the second option then the pressure of acheiving stability as a country would be releived and the terrorists tactics of Chaotic disruption would not be so tribally and or sectarianly pointed. They could then be seen as the weilders of chaos for their own purposes rather than as freedom fighters for the Iraqi people, whose bodies there bombs claim so unselectively.
If only, but i dont give it much hope. the mindsets of nations and nationalities are an anachronism in the modern world when I can comment from an office in Tokyo and have my view observed from all over the globe in a single day. The mindset of cultures is also paced about 50 years and counting behind the mindset of the individual
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