The Iraqis are coming

According to the AP, the White House has agreed to let 7,000 Iraqis into the U.S. as refugees—apparently, the executive department has significant leeway short of Congressional legislation to expand the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. This is of course the first step of what is going to be a much larger effort to launch a mass Iraqi influx into our country, unless the political will and the arguments are found to stop it. On one hand, given the consensus that Iraq’s descent into chaos and death is the result of America’s destroying Iraq’s former tyrannical regime without replacing it with a new regime capable of maintaining order, it’s going to be hard to argue that the U.S. does not owe a moral obligation to Iraqis—especially those who have cooperated with our nation-building efforts and whose lives would be most at risk if and when our forces depart—who seek a safe haven in the U.S. On the other hand, the people working with us have mostly been Shia, and it’s the Shia who control the government and who have a three to one population advantage over the Sunnis. So is it really the case that our “allies” are in dread danger if we leave? Is it not more likely that in our absence our “allies” will be liberated to use Iraqi, rather than American, methods, to suppress the Sunnis?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 14, 2007 08:27 PM | Send