International Herald Tribune Editorial - The problem isn't Maliki
International Herald Tribune Editorial - The problem isn't Maliki
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: August 24, 2007
Blaming the prime minister of Iraq, rather than the president of the United States, for the failure of U.S. policy, is cynical politics, pure and simple. It is neither fair nor helpful in figuring out how to end America's biggest foreign policy fiasco since Vietnam.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has been catastrophic for Iraq ever since he took over from the equally disastrous Ibrahim al-Jaafari more than a year ago. America helped engineer Jaafari's removal, only to get Maliki. That tells you something important about whether this is more than a matter of personalities. Jaafari, as it happens, was Iraq's first democratically chosen leader under the U.S.-sponsored Constitution.
Continuing in the Jaafari tradition, Maliki's government has fashioned Iraqi security forces into an instrument of Shiite domination and revenge, trying to steer U.S. troops away from Shiite militia strongholds and leaving Sunni Arab civilians unprotected from sectarian terrorism. His government's deep sectarian urges have also been evident in the failure to enact legislation to fairly share oil revenues and the persistence of rules that bar much of the Sunni middle class from professional employment.
The problem is not Maliki's narrow-mindedness or incompetence. He is the logical product of the system the United States created, one that deliberately empowered the long-persecuted Shiite majority and deliberately marginalized the long-dominant Sunni Arab minority. It was all but sure to produce someone very like Maliki, a sectarian Shiite far more interested in settling scores than in reconciling all Iraqis to share power in a unified and peaceful democracy.
That distinction is enormously significant, since President George W. Bush's current troop buildup is supposed to buy, at the cost of American lives, a period of relative calm for Iraqi politicians to bring about national reconciliation. How much calm it has brought is the subject of debate. But just about everyone in Washington now agrees that Maliki has made little effort to advance national unity.
The most recent intelligence report on Iraq concludes that Maliki's government is unable to govern and will become "more precarious" over the next six months to a year. That is why there can be no serious argument for buying still more time at the cost of still more American lives and an even greater cost for Iraqis.
When it comes to fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, Washington and Baghdad are often at cross-purposes. In the western province of Al Anbar, the American military has registered some gains by enlisting local Iraqi Sunnis to fight against foreign-led Al Qaeda formations. That strategy depends on the sense of Iraqi nationhood among local Sunnis. But the Maliki government prefers to concentrate on fortifying Shiite political power and exploiting the immense oil reserves of southeast Iraq. It is hard to imagine any Shiite government acting very differently.
Washington's failure to face these unpleasant realities opens the door to strange and dangerous fantasies, like Bush's surreal take on the Vietnam war. The real lesson of Vietnam for Iraq is clear enough. America lost that war because a succession of changes in South Vietnamese leadership, many of them inspired by Washington, never produced an effective government in Saigon.
The short-term sequels of American withdrawal from Indochina were brutal, as the immediate sequels of America's withdrawal from Iraq will surely be. But the American people rightly concluded that with no way to win a military victory, there could be no justification for allowing thousands more U.S. troops to die in Vietnam. Those deaths would not have changed the sequels to the war, just as more American deaths will not change the sequel to the war in Iraq. Once the war in Southeast Asia was over, America's domestic divisions healed, its battered armed forces were rebuilt and the nation was much better positioned to deal with the relentless challenges of global leadership.
If Bush took the time to study the real lessons of Vietnam, he would not be so eager to lead America still deeper into the 21st century quagmire he has created in Iraq. Following his path will not rectify the mistakes of Vietnam, it will simply repeat them.
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: August 24, 2007
Blaming the prime minister of Iraq, rather than the president of the United States, for the failure of U.S. policy, is cynical politics, pure and simple. It is neither fair nor helpful in figuring out how to end America's biggest foreign policy fiasco since Vietnam.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has been catastrophic for Iraq ever since he took over from the equally disastrous Ibrahim al-Jaafari more than a year ago. America helped engineer Jaafari's removal, only to get Maliki. That tells you something important about whether this is more than a matter of personalities. Jaafari, as it happens, was Iraq's first democratically chosen leader under the U.S.-sponsored Constitution.
Continuing in the Jaafari tradition, Maliki's government has fashioned Iraqi security forces into an instrument of Shiite domination and revenge, trying to steer U.S. troops away from Shiite militia strongholds and leaving Sunni Arab civilians unprotected from sectarian terrorism. His government's deep sectarian urges have also been evident in the failure to enact legislation to fairly share oil revenues and the persistence of rules that bar much of the Sunni middle class from professional employment.
The problem is not Maliki's narrow-mindedness or incompetence. He is the logical product of the system the United States created, one that deliberately empowered the long-persecuted Shiite majority and deliberately marginalized the long-dominant Sunni Arab minority. It was all but sure to produce someone very like Maliki, a sectarian Shiite far more interested in settling scores than in reconciling all Iraqis to share power in a unified and peaceful democracy.
That distinction is enormously significant, since President George W. Bush's current troop buildup is supposed to buy, at the cost of American lives, a period of relative calm for Iraqi politicians to bring about national reconciliation. How much calm it has brought is the subject of debate. But just about everyone in Washington now agrees that Maliki has made little effort to advance national unity.
The most recent intelligence report on Iraq concludes that Maliki's government is unable to govern and will become "more precarious" over the next six months to a year. That is why there can be no serious argument for buying still more time at the cost of still more American lives and an even greater cost for Iraqis.
When it comes to fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, Washington and Baghdad are often at cross-purposes. In the western province of Al Anbar, the American military has registered some gains by enlisting local Iraqi Sunnis to fight against foreign-led Al Qaeda formations. That strategy depends on the sense of Iraqi nationhood among local Sunnis. But the Maliki government prefers to concentrate on fortifying Shiite political power and exploiting the immense oil reserves of southeast Iraq. It is hard to imagine any Shiite government acting very differently.
Washington's failure to face these unpleasant realities opens the door to strange and dangerous fantasies, like Bush's surreal take on the Vietnam war. The real lesson of Vietnam for Iraq is clear enough. America lost that war because a succession of changes in South Vietnamese leadership, many of them inspired by Washington, never produced an effective government in Saigon.
The short-term sequels of American withdrawal from Indochina were brutal, as the immediate sequels of America's withdrawal from Iraq will surely be. But the American people rightly concluded that with no way to win a military victory, there could be no justification for allowing thousands more U.S. troops to die in Vietnam. Those deaths would not have changed the sequels to the war, just as more American deaths will not change the sequel to the war in Iraq. Once the war in Southeast Asia was over, America's domestic divisions healed, its battered armed forces were rebuilt and the nation was much better positioned to deal with the relentless challenges of global leadership.
If Bush took the time to study the real lessons of Vietnam, he would not be so eager to lead America still deeper into the 21st century quagmire he has created in Iraq. Following his path will not rectify the mistakes of Vietnam, it will simply repeat them.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 6:27 AM
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