Need Iraq Suffer More If We Pull Out?
By Johann Hari
The Independent UK
As it bleeds into its fifth year, the Iraq war is excelling only in savagery and surrealism. We now have an American President publicly citing the similarities to Vietnam as a reason why the US must not withdraw - and he is merrily quoting Graham Greene's anti-war masterpiece The Quiet American in his defence. Far from thinking anything has gone wrong, he declares: "The Iraqi people owe the American people a great debt of gratitude. That's the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq."
Meanwhile, the Iraqi psyche is so wrecked by the 7/7 blasting on to their streets 24/7 that my Iraqi friends report mass hysteria gnawing into the survivors. After a small string of attacks by badgers - you know, the little furry creatures - in Basra, so many people were convinced this was a new weapon of war that UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer had to announce publicly: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."
The last excuse the remaining defenders of the war can scrape together is - yes, but it'll be even worse if we leave. As David Petraeus, the commander of US forces, says: "If you don't like Darfur, you're going to hate Baghdad [after a US withdrawal]."
But buried in all the self-serving propaganda about staying the course, there is a dilemma for those of us genuinely worried about the Iraqi people. What if a genocide begins to unfold in a broken Iraq after the withdrawal of international troops? There are harbingers of it already. The jihadi suicide-massacres of the Yezidis in Northern Iraq last week is only one signal. I have been startled by how viciously even my democratic, liberal Iraqi friends now talk about the other side in sweeping, annihilatory language. Almost every institution of the Iraqi state - the police, army, even the hospitals - are now divided into Shia and Sunni wings which detest each other. There is a real and hefty risk that this will metastasise into an attempt to physically eliminate each other.
Just as dark is the risk of the neighbouring countries invading Iraq after a simple US withdrawal, with the Saudis marching in to defend the Sunnis, the Iranians invading to protect the Shias, and the Turks invading to prevent the creation of a separate Kurdistan in the North. This would create a Congo-on-the-Tigris.
(Continued here.)
The Independent UK
As it bleeds into its fifth year, the Iraq war is excelling only in savagery and surrealism. We now have an American President publicly citing the similarities to Vietnam as a reason why the US must not withdraw - and he is merrily quoting Graham Greene's anti-war masterpiece The Quiet American in his defence. Far from thinking anything has gone wrong, he declares: "The Iraqi people owe the American people a great debt of gratitude. That's the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq."
Meanwhile, the Iraqi psyche is so wrecked by the 7/7 blasting on to their streets 24/7 that my Iraqi friends report mass hysteria gnawing into the survivors. After a small string of attacks by badgers - you know, the little furry creatures - in Basra, so many people were convinced this was a new weapon of war that UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer had to announce publicly: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."
The last excuse the remaining defenders of the war can scrape together is - yes, but it'll be even worse if we leave. As David Petraeus, the commander of US forces, says: "If you don't like Darfur, you're going to hate Baghdad [after a US withdrawal]."
But buried in all the self-serving propaganda about staying the course, there is a dilemma for those of us genuinely worried about the Iraqi people. What if a genocide begins to unfold in a broken Iraq after the withdrawal of international troops? There are harbingers of it already. The jihadi suicide-massacres of the Yezidis in Northern Iraq last week is only one signal. I have been startled by how viciously even my democratic, liberal Iraqi friends now talk about the other side in sweeping, annihilatory language. Almost every institution of the Iraqi state - the police, army, even the hospitals - are now divided into Shia and Sunni wings which detest each other. There is a real and hefty risk that this will metastasise into an attempt to physically eliminate each other.
Just as dark is the risk of the neighbouring countries invading Iraq after a simple US withdrawal, with the Saudis marching in to defend the Sunnis, the Iranians invading to protect the Shias, and the Turks invading to prevent the creation of a separate Kurdistan in the North. This would create a Congo-on-the-Tigris.
(Continued here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home