Unable to Grasp Democracy, Is Iraq Doomed to Dictatorship?
- President Bush keeps saying we just need to give his plan more time to work in Iraq.
- The US military says Iraqis are not stepping up to the plate. Increasingly US troops are fighting alone. Allah alone knows where their Iraqi counterparts are hiding.
- Increasingly, Iraqis are turning on themselves. Suicide bombers recently killed 115 Iraqi citizens while they were doing their daily shopping. These weren't political or military targets; just plain old folks trying to survive.
- This week Iraqi politicians called upon Iraqi citizens to arm themselves for their own protection.
I can't believe he hasn't noticed, but unless hell freezes over soon, President Bush's plan doesn't have a prayer of working. The military knows it's not working. Iraqi terrorist and extremists are doing their best to keep it from working. Iraqi citizens have given up. And now Iraqi politicians have thrown in the towel. Even the protesters who gather in front of my local Starbucks every Saturday know Bush's plan is bunk. They still carry signs that say Honk if you support our troops, but the pro-Bush contingent has stopped coming. Only the Down with Bush group still rallies.
Is our president deaf, blind and dumb that he can't see what the rest of the world so clearly sees? Nothing the US does seems to be working in Iraq. Our frustrated military secures one section of the country and the terrorists and extremists pop up somewhere else. Iraq is split in its own thinly veiled civil war, the power struggle between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds rending the country. The Iraqi military is afraid to fight neighbor against neighbor for fear of retaliation. Iraqi clerics preach hate in the name of Allah while solidifying their power. Iraqi politicians have proved a spineless bunch who would rather feather their own nests than help their countrymen. American citizens (and those of our allies) are fed up and want out NOW.
Perhaps there is too great a cultural divide between Iraq and the US. Perhaps after years of servitude to tribal elders and fanatical clerics, then to a megalomaniac dictator, democracy is a too difficult a concept for Iraqis to grasp. Perhaps Iraqis can only put their differences aside and pull together under the heel of a strong leader. If that's true, the solution to Iraq's problems lies poised on her borders. Iran and Turkey wait there, eager to fill Saddam's shoes.
Labels: foreign policy, Iraq, military, President Bush, suicide bombers, terrorists, war protestors
