America just doesn't grasp the reality of Iraq and that, writes Andrew Cohen in today's Ottawa Citizen, is why the US is bound to fail:
"Sahel means 'to utterly defeat and humiliate someone by dragging his corpse through the streets.' The word is unique to Iraq, [New York Times correspondent Edward] Wong explains, where power has changed hands only through 'extreme violence, when a leader was vanquished absolutely, and his destruction was put on display for all to see.'
"In other words, sahel is the desire for complete victory. It isn't enough for the aggrieved to defeat adversaries; sahel demands their subjugation and humiliation. If this is so, it would make compromise -- or the creation of multiparty government -- virtually impossible.
"According to Mr. Wong, the Shiites and the Sunnis are not exhausted by the war. Far from it. Denied absolute power, they have become even more hungry for it. As for the killing, they're just getting started.
"This means that the effort to establish democracy in Iraq is doomed to fail. It is doomed because Iraqis don't want it.
"So the strategy among Iraqis of all stripes is to wait out the Americans. When they leave, as they surely will next year or the year after, Iraq's long, twilight struggle will begin. Eventually, horribly, someone will triumph."
If Wong and Cohen have it right, the Iraq war, at least the one started by the United States has been essentially pointless except to spark the bloodbath that will determine who will be Iraq's next tyrant.
No comments:
Post a Comment