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The Iraq Illusion In the midst of our desire to see a happy outcome in Iraq, we must never lose sight of the ability of Arabs to reject every opportunity to join the modern community of nations, i.e., the industrialized West and those in Asia who are working toward a more peaceful, integrated worldwide marketplace. Much hinges on the fate of Iraq. As Bahram Saleh, a Kurdish leader, has said, "Iraq is the nexus where many issues are coming together—Islam versus democracy, the West versus the axis of evil, Arab nationalism versus some different types of political culture. If the Americans succeed here, this will be a monumental blow to everything the terrorists stand for." There’s a reason why magicians are often referred to as "illusionists." They make us think it is possible to escape from boxes sealed with heavy chains or to transform a beautiful woman into a tiger. We know it is an illusion, but, in our desire to be entertained, we put aside reality. Thomas L. Friedman, the New York Times columnist, perhaps said it best back in January 2003, writing of the American victory in Iraq. "Congratulations! You’ve just won the Arab Yugoslavia—an artificial country congenitally divided among Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, Nasserites, leftists and a host of tribes and clans that can only be held together with a Saddam-like fist. Congratulations, you’re the new Saddam." A bit cheeky to be sure, but Friedman perhaps knew that the last thing the Bush administration wanted was to occupy and rule Iraq as we had done for many years in Japan and Germany after WWII. The US wanted out as fast as possible. The US wanted to liberate and leave. The US discovered, however, an Iraq in which the national infrastructure that had been neglected for decades by the Saddam regime, opposition to occupation even by a liberating military, and an army and police force that had been utterly debased and corrupted by the former gangster government and economy. Little wonder the first instinct of Iraqis was to loot anything that was not nailed down. Compounding the problem were 25 million Iraqis who were long accustomed to reading all the signs in the press and elsewhere to avoid running afoul of the Saddam regime. They transferred this habit to closely watch men like Jay Garner and Paul Bremer, US representatives. Garner initially met with Baathists and Bremer, who replaced him, undertook a sweeping de-Baathification program. Iraqis tried to figure out which way the wind was blowing. Joblessness was rampant. After a swift military victory, the US was largely unprepared to put Iraq back together again. Since the end of World War I and the subsequent fall of the Ottoman Empire, we have allowed ourselves to believe there was a nation called Iraq. When French and British diplomats drew lines on the map of the Middle East, Iraq emerged despite the fact that it was home to several very distinct ethnic and religious groups. The present post-Saddam Iraq is a Humpty Dumpty sitting on the narrow edge of a proposed new constitution in a place where the rule of law has never really existed, let alone notions that include the equal status of women or even the concept of private property. Property rights in Iraq have always been a matter of custom, not law. Without real property rights, there can be no democracy and no modern capitalist economy. Worse yet, the Shiites are demanding that Sharia or Islamic law be instituted. Islam and democracy cannot coexist, despite the example of Turkey where it is maintained only by an ever-vigilant military dedicated to the reformist ideals of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. If Sharia law becomes the basis of the new Iraq, half its population, its women, will be returned the seventh century. Consider what John Zogby, an Arab-American of Lebanese descent and noted pollster, had to say in April 2003 regarding the establishment of a democratic government in Iraq. "I know my people. We are an ungovernable people. I’m sorry." He was not alone. Egyptian-born Sherine El-Abd, president of a Women’s Republican Club in Middlesex, New Jersey, had serious doubts Iraq’s diverse population of 25 million people could make the transition to a unified nation. "In addition to the fact that they don’t trust anything America stands for, people who have lived under suppression don’t trust any figures in authority. A lot of Arabs who have immigrated to the United States and lived here for 20 or 30 years don’t even participate in the system here." Of course, we do have the evidence of the many Iraqis who came out and voted in the elections to begin the process toward democracy. Some remain optimistic. Samer Shehata, an Egyptian-American assistant professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University notes that democracy requires institutional structures such as an independent judiciary, a free press, and a culture of political participation. Wisely he warns that this is not a process that can occur in a few months. Part of the frustration Americans are expressing with the situation in Iraq is the failure to realize that events there will have to play themselves out over years, not months. The death of every soldier or Marine seems to suggest failure, but it is the price paid in all wars against totalitarianism.
Nor is progress toward democracy aided when neighboring nations such as Syria and Iran are totally opposed to it, funding and arming anyone who will fight to destroy a new, free Iraq. Add to that pit of vipers, the former Baath Party members. They may never believe they have been or can be defeated. Though only about fifteen percent of the population, the Sunnis are the backbone of the insurgency and, as Andrew Apostolou, director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, pointed out in December 2003, "The party’s ability to rise from the grave is legendary. The Baathists believe that they never suffered true defeats." The word Baathist means "renaissance." Though it refers to the revival of an Arab nation, "it could equally describe the resurrections of the party itself," said Apostolou. There is a history of defeats they can point to until they succeeded in grabbing power in July 1968 when Saddam began a personal reign of terror that kept him and the party in power for 35 years. "With such a history, continued combat makes perfect sense." None of this is helped by talk from local US commanders and out of Washington, DC about "timetables" to pull our troops out. That kind of thing only encourages those waging war on the barely birthed new Iraq and its constitution. It reminds Shiites of promises made and abandoned that got thousands of them killed after Washington encouraged an uprising against Saddam. It reminds Kurds of the losses they incurred in their long struggle to establish themselves as an independent region and political entity. Indeed, the most amazing thing about Iraq is the fact that its interim president is a Kurd! Jalal Talabani, who along with his sometime rival, Mas’ud Barzani, saw the vacuum of power in Baghdad after Saddam’s overthrow and left their strongholds to establish a presence there. Some observers think that, if things don’t go well for the new government, the Kurds will decide it is time to carve out a big chunk of Iraq and other nations in the area to declare the nation of Kurdistan. It would include northern Iraq, plus parts of eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran. You can bet that’s what the leaders in those nations are thinking too. This is not likely to happen because, just as the Arabs have never found common ground for anything except hating America, Israel, and all unbelievers, the Kurds, according to Ofra Bengio, a senior research fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African studies, are "really a patchwork of tribes, ethnicities, and languages reminiscent in many ways of the Caucasus", a mountainous region regarded as the boundary between Europe and Asia. The Kurds, though, have enjoyed a decade of real autonomy in Iraq and joining with other groups to establish a new Iraq may appeal to them if for no other reason than to hold onto the wealth generated by the oil reserves around Mosul and Kirkuk. Since they were instrumental in providing military assistance to the US during the invasion when Turkey refused help, the US owes the Kurds the respect to support them if they decide to form a nation of their own. At the least, it should protect them against those who might attack them. So, before we get to celebrating too long or too hard about Iraq’s new constitution, let’s remember we are dealing, for the most part, with Arabs. They don’t like us. They don’t like each. There isn’t a single Arab nation that is a democracy. They have never really known anything but kings, despots, civil wars or coup d’etats. The job of the United States is to drag and push the Iraqis and the rest of the Middle East into the 2lst century. Otherwise, this region is going to continue to produce bombers and other horrid people for a long time to come. We may well have to invade a few other nations or at least send the occasional cruise missile to let them know that we are displeased. Recent polls suggest Americans are losing interest in the war. One thing’s for sure. If we lose our nerve in Iraq, the Jihadists will win.
Not that Israel has any more intention of dying than any other nation, though it has a long record of making every kind of concession to its Arab "neighbors" in order to secure peac . Right now, the decision to force 8,000 Israelis from Gaza settlements is tearing the nation asunder, moving it perilously close to martial law and the abandonment of the very democracy that distinguishes it from every nation threatening it, including the Palestinians who do not constitute a nation. Not before and not since gaining independence in 1948 has Israel succeeded in any efforts to find peace other than winning the defensive wars it has had to fight. Neither the Oslo agreement nor the so-called "Roadmap to Peace" has produced a single day of peaceful coexistence. Why ceding Gaza or the West Bank to Palestinians will change this is beyond comprehension. The Yom Kippur war raises the question, what kind of enemy would choose a day when Jews are in their synagogues seeking God’s forgiveness? Islam. This cult masquerading as a religion has been waging war on all other religions since it was first proclaimed by Muhammad who declared himself the prophet of Allah. A lot of very smart people are still not ready to acknowledge the lessons of history or the words of the Koran. In an August 1 editorial, "Confronting the Threat", the Editor-in-Chief of U.S. News & World Report, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, refers to the "aspiration of these radical Muslims to make Islam the world’s dominant religion." The error he makes is the oft-repeated reference in the Western press to "radical" Muslims. While it is true that not all of the world’s billion-plus Muslims are actively engaged in a campaign of terror against the West and against the emergence of secular governments in the Middle East, the fact remains that jihad is one of the primary commandments of Islam. The bombers, the beheaders, the members of various Muslim cadres from Indonesia to Chechnya, are not "radical." They are just good Muslims fulfilling the dictates of the Koran. The history of Islam from 622 AD on is testimony to this. As Zuckerman points out, "This kind of messianism and totalitarianism is almost incomprehensible in the West, with its long tradition of cherishing the life and liberty of every man, woman, and child." True! But then Zuckerman goes on to say, "It isn’t war; it’s murder. Terrorists aren’t soldiers; they’re criminals." He’s wrong. The spread of Islam is the history of the "holy" war pursued from its birthplace in Arabia, across northern Africa, up into Spain until it was stopped in France, and eastward into India. It was a war that Muhammad demanded of all Muslims until the whole of the world worships Allah. It continues today. That is why Israel’s concession of its settlements in Gaza will only buy it a little time to build higher fences between itself and the Palestinians who, time and again, have rejected every opportunity to have a nation of their own. Why pursue nationhood when your only objective is to kill every Jew and Christian in Israel? There will be no peace with Islam anywhere in the world. Islam is just another word for endless war, endless jihad. Muslims are men and women who strap on explosives to kill people in the name of Allah. Muslims are people who killed hundreds of school children in Russia. Muslims are people currently killing other Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere. Muslims are people who hijack commercial jets in order to fly them into skyscrapers and kill thousands. Muslims, too, are those who issue denunciations of such acts, knowing all the time that the Koran sanctifies them. Some Muslims may not wish harm to anyone, but remain silent because their own lives are at risk if they do not. Muslims are people who, if they convert to another faith, are subject to the penalty of death. Should Israel fall before the sword of Allah, it will be a warning to other nations that it is only time before their turn is next.
©
2005 Alan Caruba.
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Tiny Israel is the proverbial canary in the coalmine that, by dying, gives warningof dangers to come.