Wishes that will remain only listed

Aug.20, 2007

Wishes that will remain only listed


IT IS conventionally welcome news that Iraq's fractious leaders have agreed on the agenda for a political summit called by Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, who is desperately trying to rescue his crumbling "national unity" government.
Maliki, who is under intense American pressure to salvage the government, is obviously hoping that the Sunnis who have quit the government would come around and opt to attend the proposed gathering if only because there is no other game in town.
It was not exactly a wise move by the Shiite prime minister to announced the formation of an alliance grouping his Dawa party and Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council and the Kurdish groups — the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) but excluding all Sunni factions. The move underlined what many see as the inevitability of the country splintering along Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni lines. The record of the post-war crisis in Iraq is interpreted by many as having established that the three major sects are unable to co-exist with each other as long as the US maintains its presence there. The US presence is the not the solution; it is the problem.
Seasoned international experts agree with the assessment; so do many retired American and European generals.
But the world has not heard much from the people who actually deal with the situation on the ground on how to deal with the crisis and whether they feel something could be done to correct the American course in Iraq. The world did hear from them this week when the New York Times carried an article written by six US military personnel serving in Iraq — Army specialist Buddhika Jayamaha, sergeants Wesley D. Smith, Jeremy Roebuck, Omar Mora and Edward Sandmeier and staff sergeants Yance T. Gray and Jeremy A. Murphy.
The article summarised what most people already knew but denied by the US administration: That the US is not winning is unlikely to win "hearts and minds" of Iraqis has ended up alienating everyone.
The article carries pointed references to the massive number of Iraqis who have fled their country and to similar number internally displaced. The article highlights the plight of the ordinary people of Iraq — the lack of electricity, services, drinking water, and above all security.
One of the most damaging revelations in the article is that the Iraqi security forces — which the writers find penetrated at the street level by Shiite militiamen and their supporters —  have become not only totally unreliable in times of crisis but also a potential source of danger for US soldiers.
Add to that what we know already of the complexities of the Iraqi way of politics, the alliances and rivalries, the fortune-hunters and back-stabbers and opportunists, and the people at large who continue to pay the price of a foreign military misadventure and who have seen the "liberator" turning to an "occupier" and to an "oppressor."
Does the net image that emerges look like a war that could be won?
Of course, Maliki has little option but to hope and continue to try to salvage himself and his government so that the US could see at least one of its strategic objectives being pushed through: Approval of legislation that would effectively hand over control of Iraq's oil resources to foreign companies.
Indeed, there is nothing that could stop anyone drawing up a wishlist, but it is a dead certainty that the US wishes in Iraq would only remain on a list.