Thinking about Iraq

Iraq is, for lack of a better term, a disaster. If there was any doubt just go to this blog run by an Iraqi dentist named Zeyad. I've been reading his blog since the summer of 2003 and the author began as very supportive of American intervention but is now obviously in very deep and profound grief over the state of his country. It's gut-churning stuff.

In Zeyad's latest installment he approvingly cited this article by Nir Rosen of the New America Foundation, stating that "It is so good that I wish I had written it myself."

Well, I checked it out, and it's a hell of a read. Entitled "Anatomy of a Civil War" this roughly 40 page article describes Iraq's plunge into the current sectarian slaughter taking place.

Near the end of the article, however, Rosen states, "America did this to Iraq. We divided Iraqis. We set them at war with each other. The least we can do is stop killing them and leave Iraq."

The U.S. has certainly committed its fair share of mistakes in Iraq -- maybe even more than its fair share -- but I find this a bit much. In Rosen's own article he states:

Demonstrators chanted, “No Americans after today,” echoing Saddam’s storm troopers, who in 1991 ransacked southern Iraq warning that there would be “no Shias after today.”

Think about that, Iraqi troops were openly calling for genocide 15 years ago -- and the Americans created these divisions?

While it's easy to blame the U.S. for all that has gone wrong, I think the reality is that the U.S. simply blew the cover off of Pandora's box, exposing -- not creating -- a country already riven by sectarianism. While the Sunni and Shia initially proclaimed solidarity between them, the toppling of Saddam exposed their competing interests. The Sunni, long accustomed to their superior position in Iraqi society, did not take kindly to the U.S. intervention. The Shia, while hardly pro-American, realized that the new order in Iraq provided them with an opportunity to finally gain influence and power commensurate with their numbers. The Sunni, raging at the Americans and the perceived Shia traitors, began targeting both. The Shia, after initially demonstrating an almost remarkable degree of restraint, have now struck back in gruesome fashion.

It simply defies belief this notion that the Sunni and Shia loved each other as brothers and then suddenly decided to literally start drilling holes in each other's heads simply because the U.S. showed up. As I see it this will only end after one or both sides see the futility of the current struggle and tire of the bloodshed.

In my mind, blaming the U.S. for the current ethnic hatred is akin to blaming Abraham Lincoln for the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. After all, had the North minded its own business and not sought the end of slavery race relations could have remained stable. But those darned Yankees insisted that men couldn't be slaves and, in the 1950s, even sent troops to ensure Black children could go to school. Without such moves, as Trent Lott may have put it, we wouldn't have had all these problems. Sure, it would have been an immoral peace, but a peace nonetheless.

You can blame the U.S. in Iraq for a lot, but I have to think that what we are seeing now is largely Saddam's legacy. As Charles Krauthammer put it today:

Are the Arabs intrinsically incapable of democracy, as the "realists" imply? True, there are political, historical, even religious reasons why Arabs are less prepared for democracy than, say, East Asians and Latin Americans who successfully democratized over the past several decades. But the problem here is Iraq's particular political culture, raped and ruined by 30 years of Hussein's totalitarianism.

Here's to hoping the Iraqis tire of the slaughter sooner rather than later.