BAGHDAD — Iraq’s political process was unraveling faster than had been anticipated Saturday, with Sunni politicians walking out of the nation’s parliament and threatening to resign from the government even before the last U.S. troops have left the country.
The crisis was triggered by reports that security forces loyal to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, are planning to arrest the country’s Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, and charge him with terrorism.
Those reports have fueled fears among Sunni politicians that Maliki intends to further consolidate his grip on power by moving against his rivals now that U.S. troops have gone. In recent days, the homes of top Sunni politicians in the fortified Green Zone have been ringed by tanks and armored personnel carriers, and rumors are flying that arrest warrants will be issued for other Sunni leaders.
The mostly Sunni Iraqiya bloc said it had withdrawn from parliament to protest what it called Maliki’s increasingly dictatorial behavior. Sunni ministers in the coalition government will resign unless he gives them a greater say in running the government and, in particular, overseeing the country’s Shiite-dominated security forces, the bloc warned.
Maliki loyalists accused the Sunnis of trying to forestall the detention of Hashimi, who, they say, has been definitively tied to acts of terrorism.
“His office is in charge of the funding and planning of terrorist attacks in Baghdad and other places,” said Hussein al-Asadi, a lawmaker with Maliki’s bloc. “The judicial authority has issued arrest warrants against those who are involved.”
We have led the Iraqi horses to the watering hole of democracy, what remains to be seen is if all will all drink from it or if half will poison the only watering hole available and laugh that they are killing their opponents. George Bush should be lauded for at least attempting to give the people of Iraq the chance to be governed by something other than a dictatorship. It matters not if the dictator is secular and barbarous or is cloaked with religeous garb, they are all dictators alike and sad to say, sharia by definition guarantees dictatorship by the mullhocracy. The cult of Mohammed denies basic human dignity for all by force and human nature then propels some to become the elite leaders cloaked by the Koran. No different than the supreme soviet, whose party members lived high on the hog while the general population suffered to no end.
Only those of us who were there could have predicted this? No. It takes generations to change the direction of a country.
This was not only predictable but bound to happen, and will only get worse. It takes decades for any country to change not only its political beliefs, but its central and core values. And the winner goes to the power who can sit it out. Till Iran and company bring Iraq into the fold. It want take long either. And the only good point(if you can call it that) is that Obi the Supreme War Chief will have given the republicans a club for each hand to clobber him with at the polls. But only if, and thats a big if, the republicans will use the fact of all the Americans killed in and for Iraq, all those men and women maimed for life, and then Obama just throws all that away on a Political Promise to Keep. But it does break ones heart after all that suffering, and lose of American lives, and of course the Iraqis who really wanted a democracy too. Way back in 05 I worked with vets who asked the same question that many of their fathers, and uncles had asked years ago in another failed/successful police action/war “Will my sacrifice be worth it?” I never answered them. And I heard the same question at other VA hopitals as well years later. I think for some of them the answer will be whatever they chose to tell themselves, and if they believe it.
@Gary G. Swenchonis: Will my sacrifice be worth it? Of course, every one of us ask that question, mostly to ourselves. We planted seeds. Many of the people I met, helped and worked with know we in the US are not the people that their leaders and clergy say we are. Many saw something different than the continuous succession of dictators. Many knew freedom if only for a little while.
We, those of use who went to Iraq, engaged the terrorists there instead of here at home. (Although, I think some of the saboteurs are in congress.) Each of us has answered that question of worth for ourselves concerning that asked of us and within our control. Our country asked us to perform a service to our country and we did. What the politicians do to get reelected is beyond our control except for our one vote!
@Randy: Sir I respect your service, and your beliefs. My point was that I think it’s an individual answer for each person, even for the wives, husbands, and others who were KIA, and or maimed. I have known family members who were angry at their loved on coming back and maimed for life. They felt the war was not worth it. But the opposite holds true as well. Many of my friends from the Vietnam Era are angry that many Americans sold them out along with their leaders, and then Vietnam was lost after over 50,000 KIA, not counting the wounded. My own feelings are that I only wish that our political leaders would really think about the long term consequences of a major conflict before committing to that conflict. Especially when they operate under the misguided beliefs that you can change a nations values, and morals in a matter of a few years. After WWII some of our leaders were wise enough to know that if we pulled out of Germany and Japan immediately after the war, that we would have to go back. That it would take decades to change the mindset so to speak. Either way whats more important is that you have settled that question. Which is great. Thanks for your service!
@Gary G. Swenchonis: Gary, I received a phone call from Iraq last week from some of the people I met there. They call me brother and Uncle. If they can get a visa, they will meet me in Spain next year. If Iran stays out of Iraq, some where in time, those who tasted freedom will likely be working towards it. Thanks for your comments. It is the Vietnam Vets who continue to suffer.
The late Lt. General William Odom, NSA Director under Reagan, wrote that the ultimate outcome in Iraq would be the same, whether we stayed 1 year or 5 years or 10 years — once we left, they’d all start fighting between themselves, with the net result to be decided by bloodshed, as opposed to through peaceful legislative channels. He was a proud advocate of cut and run. He made no bones about it and offered no apologies.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
@Randy: I wish you luck and lots of fun on your trip, and that you do get to hook up with your friends. And yes, I hope that Iran does stay out of Iraq. Those people who want freedom and have had a taste of it deserve much, much more of it!!!
Everyone should remember that we occupied the south for a decade after the Civil War and it took another six score years past that point for real change to occur in the national society. So yes, we could’ve stayed for a century and not made any “progress.”
It is also not fair to simply write all the Iraqis off through some twisted resurrection of “White Man’s Burden” and claim that our “little brown arab brothers” are incapable of appreciating freedom or exercising tolerance.
The world is a nasty messy place.
Leftists and liberal-type people would have us believe that the peoples of the world would be sitting around holding hands and singing kumbaya with one another while carebears and unicorns dance and prance in the background if not for the big bad meany United States who exploits and oppresses the world. In their minds it is the United States who makes the place nasty and messy by simply existing — and they are happy to say this to each other or in their literature, but will at least try and deny it when challenged.
The truth is the world is a nasty messy place, a closed loop of pure Hobbesian hell. It has always been so — and will remain so. The events of 9/11 brought this reality of the world back to our shores, nothing more, nothing less. There was no “USA deserved it” nor was there any “USA was innocent”…the truth lay not in anything the USA did or did not do…but is sourced in the violent intolerance of those who would exercise true oppression, demanding on pain of death the absolute obedience to their interpretation of the universe.
So many folks live under the protection of the US, many who are forgetful and resentful until the Bear rumbles in its sleep or the Dragon rattles its sword…so many live in countries who devote so little of their wealth to defense because they live under a virtual defensive protectorate.
It is just as bad here in the States, where the vast majority are so insulated from a hobbesian reality that anything that negatively affects their lives must be dealt with by someone “in charge.” To compound this an educational system that does not equip our citizens to make informed and rational decisions…instead provides views of the world and our nation that are at best ambiguous and at worse deceptively negative.
The world is a nasty, messy place. For awhile the Iraqis were ground zero in the fight between those who celebrate oppression and submission and those who celebrate individual liberty and a reasonable freedom of choice.
Occupation and Reconstruction are over for Iraq and while it may be likely that the veil of the past shall come over them as it washed across the south..one thing is for certain: it is the hands of those that lived through the sectarian suffering and remain to exercise self-determination…it will be a long and painful transition; perhaps like ourselves, one of six score years, maybe more, maybe less.
RANDY YOU SAID, WE PLANTED SEEDS, THEY have to fight their terrorists the best way they can, before getting comfy with DEMOCRACY tactics,
which will work differently in this COUNTRY, there is the religious factor there, preventing balance in power,
because of it’s rigid political intervention making it nasty for their followers to exist peacefully with the other factions, which is is also in POWER,
the MILITARY,are coming back VICTORIOUS, NOT THIS CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT here
and the credit goes all to the STANCE OF THOSE FIGHTERS FOR FREEDOM, and those who died,
did not died in vain, they left that seed, the word has been mentioned previously, and it is the KEY WORD, ” SEED ” THAT NO ONE CAN CHALLENGE,
GOOD JOB DONE FROM AMERICAN GUARDIANS OF FREEDOM, YOU ALL CAN BE PROUD OF YOUR VICTORY, AND LET NO ONE SAY OTHERWISE, YOU DID IT YOURSELVES;
THE WORLD OWE YOU SO MUCH GRATEFULNESS FOR IT,and HIGHEST RESPECT,
thank you for your courage on a stage of BARBARISM, WHICH YOU TRANSFORMED
THE FIRST DAY YOU SET FOOT IN THAT COUNTRY, TIL NOW.
THE AMERICAN CIVILIANS, WILL NEVER HAVE ENOUGH CENTURY TO GIVE YOU BACK WHAT YOU DESERVE,
Iraq once had something of a democracy. In fact, there were still many alive who remembered how it was before Saddam took over. I did not have a problem with trying to restore it for that reason.