Iraq Unraveling from Within
Is US intelligence a joke or are Bush and his cronies really that obtuse? Two headlines caught my eye this week:
Sunnis Quit Cabinet
Gates: U.S. Underestimated Iraqi Political Rift
Only an idiot -- or apparently, the US government -- didn't see this coming! The Sunni-Shiite (and to a lesser degree, Kurd) split has long been at the root of Iraq's inability to form a viable government. Only by viciously suppressing one faction in favor of another has the country ever been able to function as a political unit. Only with Saddam's iron fist pummelling the Shiites and Kurds into submission were the minority Sunnis able to control the country.
In its arrogance and naivete, the Bush gang apparently believed that once Saddam was removed, the Iraqi people would rise up as one, embrace democracy and lead a new wave of western-styled freedom through the Middle East. However, with no single strongman rising from their interminable internal squabbling and no history of cooperative government, the Shiites have been unable to form, much less maintain, even the marginal semblance of a national government.
"In some ways, we probably all underestimated the depth of mistrust and how difficult it would be for these guys to come together on legislation," US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this week.
What an understatement! Has nobody in the Bush administration ever opened a history book? You don't change centuries of cultural behavior by dangling a foreign carrot in front of a stubborn mule. And American politicians are so culturally obtuse, they never thought to find out if the donkey likes carrots!
Labels: dissidents, foreign policy, Iraq, Kurds, President Bush, Shiite, Sunni
