Hope for Iraq?

I wrote to Randall Parker at Parapundit, who has stayed admirably on top of the Iraq situation:

I really stopped paying attention to Iraq a long time ago. I had said everything I had to say many many times, and the situation seemed permanently frozen in idiocy and lies, so there seemed no point in discussing it any further. But what is your impression overall? Is there more hope for a good outcome now than there was a year ago?

Mr. Parker replied:

Yes, definitely frozen in idiocy and lies. Bush just gave a speech saying we have reached a turning point in Iraq and he’s said that before several times. So has Tom Friedman. Who was it who pointed out a few weeks ago that Friedman has made the same statement of “the most crucial 6 months starting in Iraq” several times since we invaded? We are repeatedly turning the corner into a turning point to begin the most crucial 6 months for Iraq and democracy and freedom.

Hope: No, none I can see. The “government” forces are getting relatively stronger. But I quote “government” for a reason. This isn’t a Western nation-state. This is a Shia interior ministry and Shia-dominated military fielding more death squads that the Sunnis can field. I can’t remember which is which but either the Badr Brigade controls the Interior Ministry and the Mahdi Army controls the police or vice versa. That’s pathetic.

My hope, such as it is, is that we can get to the point where the Shia thugs scare the Sunni thugs into accepting Shia rule in Baghdad. Or maybe they can reach an agreement where they ethnically cleanse each others’ minority populations in their midst so that part of Iraq is pure Sunni and part pure Shia and stop going into each others’ areas.

Then we can pretend the Shia thugs are our freedom-loving buddies firmly in control, declare victory, and leave. In other words, the only way out which Bush would accept is one where he can save face and pretend things have gone really well and pretend that the evil anti-democratic insurgency is under control of the freedom-loving democratically elected and therefore fair government.

I do not even see the lying way out coming to fruition while Bush is in office. Bush recently backtracked on the idea of starting to draw down US forces in Iraq this year. That fact speaks volumes.

My CIRA proposal would probably work by the way…

My initial note had continued:

By good outcome, I mean, not that the insurgency ends, but that the Iraqis can defend their own government from the endless insurgency, so that we can leave.

RP replied:

Um, “the Iraqis”? Who are they? They all are becoming less “Iraqi” all the time as inter-group hostility continues to build.

The police are barely distinguishable from criminals. The Shias that supposedly see as allies are increasingly attacking the Brits down in Basra. The Kurds are de facto independent with surprisingly low violence in Kurdistan because they are brutally efficient at border control (showing it can be done btw).

As for whether the Shia government can defend itself from a Sunni insurgency: That might already be the case now. But why do the fighting when we will fight for them? If we pulled out they might see the necessity of fighting hard to establish rule according to Shia doctrine and for the benefit of Shia bloodlines. But then again, maybe the Sunnis are craftier and tougher fighters. Hard to tell without running the experiment.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 27, 2006 10:59 AM | Send