A Strange Outcome to a Strange War
// The price of the question
Five years since the start of the second war in the Persian Gulf is a strange date. The First World War did not last as long as battle for “democracy in the Middle East.” And it still is not clear whether Iraq has been freed from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein or has it been occupied. Does democracy or anarchy reign there? Is international terrorism suffering losses or flourishing in a country where it was absence in the years of dictatorship?
Is the improvement in the situation in Iraq about which the American administration and press speak the clam before a storm or a manipulation of statistics? Is the withdrawal of American forces real or a trick? And what will it mean for Iraq?
Iraq today is a country with 4 million refugees, only a tiny portion of which are recognized as such by the “international community,” and an uncountable number of “displaced persons.” It is a country of national and religious minorities terrorized and decimated after being freed from Saddam, who defended them. It is a war of everybody against everybody.
Iraqi Christians are among the biggest victims of the crusade against terrorism. Sunni and Shia Muslims fight each other and among themselves. The Kurds live in their own state, more independently than Kosovo. We can pretend that it is not so, but there is no more unified Iraq. The late Chairman Moa might have been talking about Iraq when he said, “Ten thousand mad rats are worse than one mad tiger.” And he was right, wasn't he?
Western coalition forces entered Iraq without waiting for a UN mandate. Today, five years later, the coalition has seen over 4000 of its own dead. They say nothing abut the local dead. Who will count the number of local dead who “gave their lives for democracy”? Democracy in Iraq means elections, massive corruption and waiting for southern Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr to receive the title of ayatollah and break the peace.
Who has benefited from the last five years? The Kurds, who are no longer threatened by Baghdad, but whose territory is now being “cleansed” by Ankara? Al-Qaeda, which received Iraq as a free operations base from the United States? The Iranian “neoconservatives,” who came to power on the wave of the “Western threat” after the loss of their main regional competitor? Saddam has been overthrown and hung, but victory is much farther off than it was at the beginning of the war. Oil prices have gone sky high and have no intention of coming down again. Tehran is broadening its sphere of influence rapidly and, in place of theoretical Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, there is a real danger of an Iranian atomic bomb coming into being.
On the other hand, military units from the U.S., Great Britain and their allies, among whom Poland and Georgia now play an important role, have been given a good warm-up. A unit from Fiji regularly patrols Baghdad. And it is clear to everyone who would see it just what the West, and the U.S. in particular, is capable of and what it lacks the people and resources to do. It's a strange outcome to a strange war.
Evgeny Satanovsky, president of the Middle East Institute
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 20, 2008
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