Iraq. The story that somehow never goes away. To paraphrase Michael Corleone in "The Godfather Part III," just when we thought we were out, it pulls us back in.
I might, if I were discussing violence in a different nation, refer to "the nation that somehow never goes away." But Iraq is not a nation. It never truly has been. And that is at the center of the instability and inhumanity that has characterized the less-than-a century of its existence.
Properly understood, Iraq is one of the unfortunate consequences--perhaps the most unfortunate--of the Sykes-Picot Treaty, an agreement between Great Britain and France to carve up, post-World War I, most of the Ottoman Empire to extend their own imperial interests. In Britain's case, that meant obtaining the portions that offered the greatest access to oil, and then merging them in a way that was (at that time) administratively convenient--even if that convenience needed to be forged in a bloodbath of ethnic cleansing. Even after the bloodbath, the "nation" of Iraq remained what it essentially had been under Ottoman rule--three provinces divide by ethnicity and/or religion, and living at swordpoint under a single flag that could hide, but not destroy, the animosity among the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shia.
For this reason, and despite decades of Western-friendly kings and dictators in charge, Iraq has been a ticking time-bomb, waiting to explode. When Dick Cheney--sorry, I meant George W. Bush--made the fateful decision to go looking for non-existent weapons of mass destruction, he effectively provided the detonator, by removing Saddam Hussein, the common enemy that united Iraq's otherwise divided people. And when Cheney-Bush was replaced by Barack Obama, the new president effectively set the stage for re-igniting the powder keg, by buying into the "bipartisan" approach to foreign policy and accepting the fiction that Iraq could, and had, become a democracy.
If there is one fact that democracy in the United States proves beyond any doubt, it is that democracy cannot thrive in the absence of a common culture that triumphs over political divisions. This country is effectively divided between "red" and "blue" cultural perspectives that hamper our ability to come together even on issues where common ground clearly exists. Iraq, however, is far worse: it is divided by three entirely different cultures that have no desire to be part of the same nation. That is why democracy could never thrive in Iraq.
Indeed, Iraq illustrates the dilemma of our time where the Middle East and Africa are concerned: the boundaries of long-dead empires that deny large, densely-populated portions of the world not only the ability to join the family of modern nations, but even the basic ability to function as nations at all. One of the most urgent international projects of our time is to redraw the map in these regions, to align national boundaries with historic ethnic, religious and other cultural factors that simultaneously divide these peoples, and give them the chance to effectively communicate within and across boundaries. I have shared this view in a previous post, and I do so again now. Democracy, and international cooperation, can only work among national units that are secure in their basic identities--and only with that security can they have the strength to open their minds and hearts to the differences of their neighbors.
If, as a nation, we re-commit ourselves to resolving the destinies of the Iraqi peoples, it must be with the goal to create not one democracy, but three. It is the only way to keep faith with the flow of history, and with the humanity and treasure that has already been committed to the region.
Which brings me to a particularly distasteful aspect of the current crisis: the re-emergence of the neocon network that pushed with all its might to commit that humanity and treasure--and did so assuring us that the outcome would pay for itself, both financially and with the birth of a new democracy. It is an indictment of the not-so-liberal mainstream media that, last Sunday, nearly all of them were resurrected on the network news talk shows as "experts" on the way forward in the Middle East. If there is any reason for listening to these men, who have ice in their veins and blood on their hands, it is solely to recall their previous advice about Iraq and do the exact opposite of what they suggest. If even Pat Robertson can figure out that the Cheney-Bush war approach was a fiasco, maybe the rest of us can, too.
Yes, let's go back to Iraq, if their is no other alternative. But let's not do it with allies. And let's tell them the truth about what is wrong, and what needs to be done to fix it. Let's create not one democracy, but three. Let's leave a limited number of troops behind, but troops that are fully equipped and paid for up front--with a gas surtax, if necessary. And only for a limited period of time, to send a message to the new nations that, at some point, they have to live or die on their own.
I would rather not go back to Iraq at all. And I'm sure that I'm not alone. But it's beginning to look as through Iraq is the international nightmare that will not go away. Something to think about this fall, if you're tempted to vote for the neocon's favorite political party.
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