Relief in Iraq
Wouldn't it be quite wonderful if the hope now being expressed of a breakthrough to reason and civility in Iraq really did materialize? As impossible as that seemed a few months ago, may it yet come to fruition? Well, who really knows, after all. After all, even yet there are dozens of people being killed in car bombs, sometimes more, sometimes daily.While in some parts of the country, and particularly in carnage-ravaged areas, something approximating daily normalcy is proceeding, encouraging Iraqis to finally believe beyond hopelessness.
Defenders of the war in Iraq are trumpeting the major cause of the turn-about as resulting from the U.S. troop surge of some previous months' vintage. Others more realistically point out the sectarian cleansing that took place as having a settling effect, with the effective separation of Sunni and Shiite from mixed neighbourhoods.
And then there was the stand-down of the al-Sadr Shia militias, and the refusal of Sunni chieftans to prolong their support of al-Qaeda, routing them from their jihadist predations.
The criminal free-for-all, the violent anti-social annihilation of all that augered counter to sectarian values promised to utterly destroy any semblance of hope for the future, for national conciliation, for a collective surge toward responsibility and moderation. Over now. Time to breathe in relief, to stroll suddenly quiet streets, even at night with lamps fully lit, markets in full operation.
The millions of Iraqis desperate to flee the promise of death, living as barely tolerated refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon have been returning to a more sane, promising world.
Or is it a more sane, promising world? Does their return speak more to their ordeal living as despised, needs-ignored refugees among other Arabs with whom they found little in common?
Having run through their emergency funds and dependent on charity, on even the charity of family and friends left behind in Iraq sending them the wherewithal to exist as refugees? Did they have any other options, with Syria pushing them harshly, impatiently, back over the border?
Iraqi loss of life during the war, post-invasion through internecine strife; lives lost to disease, starvation and the perils of dislocation, let alone merciless attacks from al-Qaeda, eager to sow as much dissent between Sunni and Shia as they could brutally manage is staggering enough.
The millions of internally displaced who have suffered great material loss and have little means of economic survival is still a reality.
Iran's predatory training and placement of insurgents, its mischief-making and long-term aspirations for Iraq can't be discounted. It will continue its support for anti-government militias and their destabilizing effect on the nascent Arab democratic hopes.
There does not appear to exist a distinguishable world-wide rush to invest in the country's future development. International capitalism appears to be withholding its trust in the future of the country.
It would appear that al-Qaeda in Iraq has slunk away into dark corners of oblivion, finally rejected as a liberating source of diseased violence. The pros and the cons. Which will prevail? Who, after all, knows?
Labels: Middle East, Realities, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Friday, November 23, 2007
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