generalspeaking

Mutual Sacrifice, Mutual Relief

The ill-considered and painfully fateful decision of the United States to invade Iraq is finally drawing to a conclusion. Yes, a tyrant was removed, a murderous dictator who made life a misery for most of his population. But the world is full of murderous tyrants; he was simply one of many. As an excuse for the invasion of a sovereign country, one so immensely geographically removed from the United States of America, the removal of Saddam Hussein was an absurdity.

He may have been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iraqis, but the invasion of Iraq by the U.S. has been responsible for the deaths of far more Iraqis. Not to mention the more than four thousand, three hundred American military personnel who have given up their lives for this colossal misadventure. And what, really, has been achieved? Under Saddam Hussein's iron fist, although the Baath party benefited Sunni Iraqis to the detriment of the majority Shi'ites, and certainly to the misery of the country's Kurd population, there was still a cohesion of national purpose, even if guided by fear.

Religious factions did not wreak deadly carnage on one another, as they now do. That privilege was Saddam Hussein's alone.

What has occurred is that the Shia majority is now in the ascendancy, the Sunni population's security is uncertain and problematical. Only the Kurds appear to have really benefited from the extraction of Saddam Hussein's brutal reign over them, and they have become semi-autonomous and wealthy through their oil inheritance. Of the three major groups only the Sunni minority Muslims have no geographic oil inheritance.

And nothing has yet been done to integrate the Sunnis into the general armed forces stream, the country's political administration, and to ensure that they benefit equally from the country's oil wealth.

June 30 is considered a 'victory' for Iraq, because it signals the end of U.S. military occupation of the country. U.S. forces have withdrawn from the major urban centres, but remain in some force with 130,000 troops still remaining, even though control has been handed back to the Iraqi government. Complete withdrawals is still a year and a half away. In the meantime, although Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki insists on expressing his supreme confidence in the Iraqi security forces' ability to protect the population, violence is ongoing.

Bombings and suicide attacks have continued, unrestrained by the presence of American troops, and what indication is there that they will abate with the removal of American troops? The transition to complete Iraqi control will not automatically confer safety and security on the country and the population. Resentment from the ranks of the discredited, the new socially and politically under-privileged will certainly not guarantee social cohesion without the reintegration of the Sunni portion of the population.

The country's proximity to Shi'ite Iran whose influence over the current government and its prominent Shia clerics does not bode well for the country's future. For the time being National Sovereignty Day gives the country something to celebrate; a common enemy departing. And then, what?

Labels: Middle East, Troublespots

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, July 01, 2009