Iraqi chief's killing seen as symbolic blow
Suicide bombing that killed Governing Council leader Monday may signal a low point for the coalition.
The suicide bombing attack that killed the head of Iraq's Governing Council, Izzedine Salim, near the entrance of the coalition headquarters in Baghdad Monday "gave shape to a feeling among Iraqi and US officials and common citizens that
the country is almost unmanageable," reports
The Washington Post.
Top US civilian administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said that the bombing (for which an Iraqi resistance group –
al-Rashid brigades – claimed responsibility)
will not stall the transfer of power from the US-led coalition to Iraqis next month.
But the
Post calls Salim's death "a high-profile reminder of the broader violence affecting Iraq." The report also gives many examples of the deteriorating security situation – and resulting frustrations – throughout the country. The
Post quotes Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the Governing Council, as saying that "a small band of people can paralyze the country. ... It's a real danger to Iraq, the Iraqis and to an agenda to achieve any kind of democracy."
International affairs commentator Fareed Zakaria agrees with this assessment in a piece in
Newsweek with the headline '
No security, no democracy'. "Power is slowly shifting to Iraqi leaders on the ground with men and arms. Politics abhors a vacuum, and in Iraq, local militias are filling it," Mr. Zakaria writes.
Over time, these political groups will struggle for power – and their militias will help them do battle. When elections are held, they will use force and money to ensure that the results come out their way.
Some in America are now urging elections even sooner than January 2005. This is not a democratization strategy. It is an exit strategy. But it will not work. Elections held in an uncertain security environment with militias running around the country will produce contested results and a renewed power struggle – in other words, a road neither to peace nor to pluralism.
The Christian Science Monitor reports that Salim's death "
may prove a severe setback both to the credibility of US vows to provide security and to the coalition's ability to attract moderate Iraqis to serve in high-profile positions."
The Economist writes that "it is clear that
more coalition troops are urgently needed to stop the insurgency escalating further and dragging Iraq down into all-out civil war." Yet,
The Economist points out, both US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair "are under increasing pressure, from both their voters at home and their foreign allies, to offer a clearer strategy for how and when they will pull their soldiers out of Iraq."
As
The Independent puts it: "There are
few more potent symbols of the disaster that the occupation is turning into than the burning and twisted wreckage of cars that lay outside the green zone [Monday]."
But, as bad as things seem to be in Iraq now, there is
light at the end of the tunnel, according to
New York Times columnist David Brooks. "There's something about our venture into Iraq that is inspiringly, painfully, embarrassingly and quintessentially American," he writes." Mr. Brooks takes a brief look at some key moments in US history, painting a picture of an overly optimistic, yet highly adaptable, national style that has existed "from the moment British colonists landed on North American shores."
Hope begets disappointment, and we are now in a moment of disappointment when it comes to Iraq. During these shakeout moments, the naysayers get to gloat while the rest of us despair, lacerate ourselves, second-guess those in charge and look at things anew. But this very process of self-criticism is the precondition for the second wind, the grubbier, less illusioned effort that often enough leads to some acceptable outcome. Brooks ends his optimistic piece this way: "The weeks until June 30 are bound to be awful, but we may be at the start of a new beginning now."
An opinion piece by Michael O'Hanlon and James Steinberg published in
The Washington Post is
not so optimistic. Mr. O'Hanlon and Mr. Steinberg point to US history to support their views, even though they have a different take than Brooks.
Unlike the case with most previous stabilization missions, our own enduring commitment to success in Iraq is beginning to work against us. It breeds cynicism among Iraqis that we are like the colonialists of old, planning to stay indefinitely to keep our hands on their oil and to use Iraq for our own, broader foreign policy objectives. The lesson of our history is that our best partners are those who freely choose to be. We must give the Iraqis the opportunity to seize that possibility for themselves. Meanwhile,
Reuters reports that influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, demanded that US forces and Shiite militia forces
withdraw from the embattled holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. US forces and forces loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have been fighting in and around those cities in the past weeks.
Also...
•
M.P.'s received orders to strip Iraqi detainees (
The New York Times)
•
The Green Zone: A gated American community with Iraqi residents (
Slate)
•
'No one understands what we've been through' (
The Guardian
•
Wrong Way in Gaza (
The Washington Post)
•
The Zero-Hour: Remember the Zarqawi letter. (
National Review Online)
•
Kazakhstan: A Center For Dialogue Between Civilizations (
Dar al hayat, London-based)
• Feedback appreciated. E-mail
Matthew Clark.
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