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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 10/15/2003 10:24 AM (GMT -6) |   | Iraq War Swells Al Qaeda's Ranks, Report Says
October 15, 2003
By REUTERS
Filed at 12:52 p.m. ET
LONDON (Reuters) - War in Iraq has swollen the ranks of al
Qaeda and galvanized the Islamic militant group's will, the
International Institute for Strategic Studies said on
Wednesday in its annual report.
The 2003-2004 edition of the British-based think-tank's
annual bible for defense analysts, The Military Balance,
said Washington's assertions after the Iraq conflict that
it had turned the corner in the war on terror were
``over-confident.''
The report, widely considered an authoritative text on the
military capabilities of states and militant groups
worldwide, could prove fodder for critics of the
U.S.-British invasion and of the reconstruction effort that
has followed in Iraq.
Washington must impose security in Iraq to prevent the
country from ``ripening into a cause celebre for radical
Islamic terrorists,'' it concluded. ``Nation-building'' in
Iraq was paramount and might require more troops than
initially planned.
``On the plus side, war in Iraq has denied al Qaeda a
potential supplier of weapons of mass destruction and
discouraged state sponsors of terrorism from continuing to
support it,'' the report said.
``On the minus side, war in Iraq has probably inflamed
radical passions among Muslims and thus increased al
Qaeda's recruiting power and morale and, at least
marginally, its operating capability,'' it said.
``The immediate effect of the war may have been to isolate
further al Qaeda from any potential state supporters while
also swelling its ranks and galvanizing its will.''
FAILED STATES
Magnus Ranstorp, terrorism expert at
Britain's St Andrew's University, told Reuters the report's
findings would drive home the importance of rebuilding Iraq
and other conflict zones.
``Military planners and the law enforcement community are
fully aware of the consequences of failed states,'' he
said.
``I think it's probably worthwhile for politicians to keep
in mind our responsibility to provide sustained and long
term reconstruction in war-torn countries, so they don't
fly back into anarchy or become incubators of terrorism.''
Washington blames al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, for
the 2001 U.S. airliner hijack attacks which killed 3,044
people.
A crackdown had netted some al Qaeda leaders and deprived
al Qaeda of bases in Afghanistan. But it also ``impelled an
already highly decentralized and evasive international
terrorist network to become even more 'virtual' and protean
and, therefore, harder to identify and neutralize,'' the
IISS report said.
It said 18,000 veterans of al Qaeda's Afghan training camps
were still probably operating worldwide ``with recruitment
continuing and probably increasing following the war in
Iraq.''
Al Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden, are mostly still at
large and continue to incite followers over the Internet
and through pronouncements on Arabic-language television.
Because of its extreme religious world view, al Qaeda
``cannot be tamed or controlled through political
compromise or conflict resolution,'' the report said.
But Western countries need to do more to reach out to
Muslim countries and their own Islamic minorities to
``eliminate the root causes of terrorism,'' especially
after the Iraq war ``almost certainly further alienated
Islam from the West.''
Efforts should be redoubled to resolve local conflicts,
such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, so regional
radical groups such as Hamas do not fall into al Qaeda's
embrace, it said.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-security-iraq-balance.html?ex=1067249314&ei=1&en=40e3e018fd6fb1d2
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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honorman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137
| Posted 10/15/2003 12:26 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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honorman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137
| Posted 10/16/2003 5:31 AM (GMT -6) | | | Excellant points, DLW. Trying to make a democracy does not mean the people of said country have the same rights as we do. They are still a long way away. Plus, I think it is important to cut the soldiers a little slack and remember people are still trying to kill them there. There is still many differences between here and there. We've had two hundred years. They are just starting. | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 10/19/2003 9:15 AM (GMT -6) | | An optimistic article about how some within the Arab world are calling for political(and, of course, religious) reforms to deal with their internal problems and how the US/World may help encourage/protect these internal calls for reform.
dlw
Courageous Arab Thinkers
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: October 19, 2003
I should have known something was up when a Saudi diplomat recently asked me, "Do you know what kind of woman is most sought after as a wife by Saudi men today?" No, I said, what kind? "A woman with a job."
I thought of that when I read last week's announcement that within a year Saudi Arabia would conduct its first real elections — for municipal councils. Most people thought it would snow in Saudi Arabia before there would be elections. So what's up?
What's up are three big shocks hammering the Arab system. First, with oil revenues flat, there isn't enough money anymore to buy off, or provide jobs to, the exploding Arab populations. Hence the growing need for wives with work. The second is the Iraq war shock. Even with all the problems in Baghdad now, virtually every autocratic Arab regime is starting to prepare for the uncomfortable possibility that by 2005 Iraq will hold a free election, which will shame all those who never have. As Lawrence Summers, Harvard's president, likes to say, "One good example is worth a thousand theories." Iraq — maybe — could be that example.
But there is another tremor shaking the Arab world. This one is being set off by a group of courageous Arab social scientists, who decided, with the help of the United Nations, to begin fighting the war of ideas for the Arab future by detailing just how far the Arab world has fallen behind and by laying out a progressive pathway forward. Their first publication, the Arab Human Development Report 2002, explained how the deficits of freedom, education and women's empowerment in the Arab world have left the region so behind that the combined G.D.P. of the 22 Arab states was less than that of a single country — Spain. Even with limited Internet access in the Arab world, one million copies of this report were downloaded, sparking internal debates.
Tomorrow, in Amman, Jordan, these Arab thinkers will unveil their second Arab Human Development Report, which focuses on the need to rebuild Arab "knowledge societies." The report is embargoed until then, but from talking with the authors I sense it will be another bombshell.
Those who worked on this report do not believe in the Iraq-war model of political change. They prefer evolution from within. But they believe there must be serious change. They are convinced that Islam has a long history of absorbing knowledge. But in the modern era an unholy alliance between repressive Arab regimes and certain conservative Muslim scholars has led to the domination of certain interpretations of Islam that serve the governments but are hostile to human development — particularly freedom of thought, women's empowerment and the accountability of governments to their people.
The result? There are just 18 computers per 1,000 people in the Arab region today, compared with the global average of 78.3 per 1,000, and only 1.6 percent of the Arab population has Internet access. In 1995-96 alone, 25 percent of all graduates from Arab universities with B.A. degrees emigrated, while 15,000 medical doctors left the Arab world from 1998 to 2000.
The number of scientists and engineers working in R.&D. in the Arab region is 371 per million citizens, compared with a global rate of 979 per million. Although the Arab region represents 5 percent of world population, it produces only 1.1 percent of the books in the world. There is an abundance of religious books published in the Arab region — more than triple the world average — but a paucity of literary and artistic works. Tons of foreign technology is imported, but it's never really internalized or supplanted by Arab innovations.
The authors are convinced of something any visitor to the region can feel: that there is abundant Arab human capital to reclaim Arab knowledge — just note how many Arabs thrive as doctors and scientists when they come to the West. But this rebirth requires a massive investment in education, to move it away from uncritical repetition, and steps by the insular Arab states to encourage greater interaction with other nations and cultures and an easing of their social and political restrictions on criticism, the press and importing of ideas from abroad.
What should America's response to all this be? We should stop talking about "terrorism" and W.M.D. and make clear that we're in Iraq for one reason: to help Iraqis implement the Arab Human Development Reports, so the war of ideas can be fought from within. Then we should get out of the way. Just one good model — one good Arab model that works — and you will see more than just municipal elections in Saudi Arabia.
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 10/19/2003 9:54 AM (GMT -6) | | Here are some suggestions of the current president of the Iraq Council on how the US could let the Iraqis relieve us of the burden of rebuilding their country.
America Must Let Iraq Rebuild Itself
By ILAD ALAWI
Published: October 19, 2003
BAGHDAD, Iraq
No Iraqi will ever forget the momentous April day when a crowd of hundreds of cheering Baghdadis, helped by an American armored vehicle, pull the huge statue of Saddam Hussein to the ground. With this act, we tore down three decades of tyranny and repression and began building in its place a foundation for freedom, democracy and a better future for our children.
To see that this goal is achieved, the Bush administration has challenged me and my colleagues on the Iraqi Governing Council to draft a permanent constitution within six months and to move as quickly as possible to hold internationally monitored, free elections. We gladly accept that challenge, and welcome the vital assistance of the United Nations, through the Security Council resolution passed on Thursday, to see through to completion the enormous task ahead.
But we also realize that there are obstacles on Iraq's march toward democracy. In the months since Iraq was liberated, jubilation has given way to insecurity and chaos. When my fellow Iraqis finally go to the polls to elect their government, they must have confidence that state institutions are not only legitimate and independent, but robust enough to guarantee safety and civil rights. That is why the coalition and the council must take several immediate steps to establish these necessary conditions for the constitutional process to succeed.
First, it is vital to call up the Iraqi Army and the national police force, at least up to mid-officer level. The coalition's early decision to abolish the army and police was well intended, but it unfortunately resulted in a security vacuum that let criminals, die-hards of the former regime and international terrorists flourish. And the coalition's plan to build a 20,000-member lightly armed force mostly responsible for security and border control would make poor use of a valuable resource: the 300,000 Iraqi soldiers who simply went home with their weapons in the face of the American-led invasion.
Most of these soldiers are Iraqi patriots who chose not to fight for Saddam Hussein. Americans should not confuse the Iraqi Army with the hated Republican Guard, which Saddam Hussein created precisely because he distrusted the legitimate military. In one simple process, the coalition authority can support the governing council to call the army back to its barracks for retraining and, ultimately, for redeployment. Most soldiers and their officers will proudly return to their units and contribute to their country's future.
The coalition and the Iraqi Interior Ministry can vet officers to remove those who committed crimes under the old regime, and then rapidly redeploy the most capable units to work with, and progressively relieve, American troops of security duties. Iraqi Army units have an established chain of command and esprit de corps. Not only can they be recalled to barracks immediately, but it would be much easier and quicker to retrain and re-equip them within their existing organizational structure than to start from scratch.
By supporting the recall of army units, the United States would not only speed the process of relieving the burden on its troops, it would also gain substantial good will in Iraq. In contrast, any American-led military presence, even if complemented by the United Nations, will never have the credibility and legitimacy that the Iraqi Army has among the people.
In addition, the Iraqi national police must also be recalled. Most Iraqi policemen — as opposed to Saddam Hussein's feared intelligence and security organs — are dedicated to law and order. The United States does not have the time or money to create a police force from the ground up, nor is it necessary, because we have a large, organized force that is ready and willing to serve.
Many other Iraqi governing institutions should also be reactivated by the governing council, with the support of the coalition authority. Special priority must be given to the Ministries of Interior, Justice, Finance, Oil and Education. The Iraqi bureaucracy must also be called back to work, although of course after screening to disqualify serious offenders of the former regime. Together, the council and the coalition leaders can modernize the state apparatus, phase out obsolete policies and practices, and encourage a new mindset of transparency and efficiency.
Finally, as security improves, Iraqi institutions are re-established and the constitutional drafting process is completed, the United States should support international recognition of Iraqi sovereignty. Then a recognized interim government could quickly present a popular referendum, under United Nations monitoring, on the new national constitution. It would be a grave mistake for the United States to hold out sovereignty and international recognition as the reward for passage of a constitution. Rather, making Iraqis once again a part of the international system is the prerequisite of successful reconstruction and a durable democratic system.
Iraqis are grateful for the tremendous efforts and sacrifices the United States is making on our behalf. Yet, ultimately, only Iraqis themselves can restore security, rebuild national institutions, enact a constitution and elect a democratic government. America must not rebuff Iraqis who are eager to have a stake in this intimate national process. Like any free people, we want to ensure that we are in control of our own destiny.
Iyad Alawi is serving as president of the Iraqi Governing Council this month.
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 10/22/2003 6:37 PM (GMT -6) | | Free Advice to G.O.P.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: October 23, 2003
Republicans seem to think they don't have to think when it comes to Iraq. They only have to applaud the president and whack the press for not reporting more good news from Baghdad — and everything will be fine. Well, think again.
I've often pointed out the good we have done in Iraq and unabashedly hoped for more. No regrets. But some recent trends leave me worried. Unfortunately, there are few Democrats to press my worries on the administration. Most Democrats either opposed the war (a perfectly legitimate position) or supported it and are now trying to disown it. That means the only serious opposition can come from Republicans, so they'd better get focused — because there is nothing about the Bush team's performance in Iraq up to now that justifies a free pass. If Republicans don't get serious on Iraq, they will wake up a year from now and find all their candidates facing the same question: "How did your party lose Iraq?"
If I were a Republican senator, here's what I'd tell the Bush team:
• What in God's name are you doing forcing Iraqis to accept Turkish peacekeeping troops? Are you nuts? Not only will Turkish troops in Iraq alienate the Kurds, our best friends, but they will rile the Shiites and Sunnis as well. Honor is hugely important in Iraqi society, and bringing in Turkish soldiers — Iraq's former colonizers — to order around Iraqis would be a disaster. "If we bring in the Turks, it will bring back bad memories," notes Yitzhak Nakash, a Brandeis University professor and author of one of the best Iraq books, "The Shi'is of Iraq." "Worse, a Turkish presence in Iraq will only prompt the Iranians, Syrians and Saudis to try to increase their influence. That is no recipe for a stable country."
It's time for the Bush team to admit it made a grievous error in disbanding Iraq's Army — which didn't even fight us — and declare: "We thank all the nations who offered troops, but we think the Iraqi people can and must secure their own country. So we're inviting all former Iraqi Army soldiers (not Republican Guards) to report back to duty. For every two Iraqi battalions that return to duty (they can weed out their own bad apples), we will withdraw an American one. So Iraqis can liberate themselves. Our motto is Iraq for the Iraqis."
• Attacks on our forces are getting more deadly, not less. Besides those killed, we've had 900 wounded or maimed. We need to take this much more seriously. We're not facing some ragtag insurrection. We're facing an enemy with a command and control center who is cleverly picking off our troops and those Iraqi leaders and foreigners cooperating with us. Either we put in the troops needed to finish the war, and project our authority, or we get the Iraqi Army to do the job — but pretending that we're just "mopping up" is a dangerous illusion.
• The neocons need a neo-Baath. I'm glad we banned the Baath Party, but the ban was not done right. It needed to be accompanied by a clear process for people who simply joined the Baath to secure government jobs, like school directors, to recant and be rehabilitated. Just tossing these people out has purged thousands of technocrats, weakened the secular middle class and left a power vacuum filled by religious groups. Also, Iraq needs a party that can express the aspirations of Iraq's Sunni minority and give them a stake in the new state. Right now, the Sunni mainstream in Iraq isn't sure how it fits into any new order, so the worst elements are opposing us and the best are apprehensively sitting on the fence.
• "There is now a struggle for power emerging within the Shiite community," says Mr. Nakash, "between those clerics and secular leaders who are ready to give the Americans a chance and a grass-roots leadership that wants to challenge both the Americans and the traditional Shia hierarchy. This grass-roots leadership is seeking control of mosques, followers, religious authority and income from religious taxes. Iraq is rapidly moving toward the politics of militias and arms. This trend has to be stopped."
Bottom line: We still haven't established a moderate political center in Iraq ready to openly embrace the progressive U.S. agenda for Iraq and openly defend it. That center is potentially there, but because, so far, we have failed to provide a secure enough environment, or a framework for Iraqis to have the national dialogue they need to build a better Iraq, it has not emerged. We need to fix this situation fast. Instead of applauding without thinking, Republicans should be telling that to the president.
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 10/26/2003 4:45 AM (GMT -6) | | And now for some good news about the effects of the Iraq war...
dlw
Iraqis Get Used to Life Without Hussein, and Many Find They Like It
By JOEL BRINKLEY
Published: October 26, 2003
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 25 — At the Hijra elementary school in a prosperous neighborhood of the city on Saturday morning, a class of fifth graders stood at attention when the assistant principal walked in and automatically began to chant, "Long live the president," Saddam Hussein.
But their voices trailed off before they reached last word, and several students looked down at the floor.
"Things are totally changed now," said Enam Moussa al-Naqid, the assistant principal, openly delighted by the present state of affairs. "All the children are back and all the teachers, the same ones who have been here for 25 years."
When school reopened on Oct. 1, hundreds of parents, afraid for their children, waited out front at the end of the day to walk their children home. Now very few do.
On Friday evening, the American authorities lifted the curfew on Baghdad starting early Sunday morning, saying life here was returning to normal. Across the city on Saturday, numerous Iraqis agreed and provided ample evidence. Streets swarmed with people shopping and socializing. Coffee houses were packed. Families strolled; vendors clogged the sidewalks.
The manager of a travel agency said he is busy for the first time in more than a decade, primarily booking thousands of vacations to the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, where Iraqis had been forbidden to travel since 1991. "People feel free to travel now, and they want to go because there's amazing scenery up there, and it's clean and safe," said Ahmed Abdel Hamid, the manager.
Outside the city passport office on Saturday afternoon, dozens of Iraqis milled about, waiting to apply for travel papers. Rouda Jasim Ali sat under a tree outside the office, obviously proud as she held travel papers just issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority, written in English and Arabic.
She had never left the country before, "but now I am going to visit my uncle in Jordan," she said with a grin.
At the Ratidain state bank, Hussein Salman, an accountant, sat on a bag holding eight million dinars, or $4,000, in small bills. He was waiting to deposit it — something he would have thought twice about before the war.
"It's safer to use banks now because there's more stability," he said. One reason for the stability was the American M1 Abrams tank outside the front door with its gun pointed at the street. Inside, around Mr. Salman, the lobby teemed with three dozen people waiting for a teller. Before the war, "it was never crowded," he said. "Almost nobody came here."
To be sure, significant security problems remain, and not everyone is optimistic and pleased with the current state of the nation. Every day, including Saturday, attacks of one sort or another generally result in one or more deaths.
In the southern Iraqi city of Amara on Saturday morning, unidentified assailants shot and killed the police chief as he left a mosque after prayers. In Tikrit, The Associated Press reported, an American Black Hawk military helicopter crashed after taking fire from the ground. Five serviceman were wounded, the American military said. A United States military spokesman said three civilians had been killed and two wounded when a roadside bomb hit two civilian vehicles, which then came under fire on a highway 50 miles west of Baghdad, Reuters reported. An official at a local hospital said an Iraqi translator had been killed in the same incident.
No incidents were reported in Baghdad on Saturday. Still, everyone interviewed complained that they felt unsafe at times, though "things are getting better in a visible way, day by day," said Ali al-Sharif, a restaurant manager.
Behind him in the Alsaah Restaurant, six college girls sat at a table eating lunch — sandwiches and kebab. They said this was the first time they had been out together since the war.
"Life is getting back to normal; we are adapting to the situation, but we are still afraid of bombs," said Rana al-Bidhani, 22, a linguistics student. "It's good to go out again."
Before the war, young women were afraid to visit this restaurant for another reason. It was a favorite of Uday Hussein, the president's notorious son, who was known to pick up attractive women he encountered and take them back to his palace.
Suha Nazar, 20, was thinking of the violence in the city since the war, not the former leadership, when she observed that "now we feel we can walk in the streets."
Nonetheless, she added, "we are still a little afraid."
Mr. Sharif, the restaurant manager, said that for many months after the war, his only customers were men, who drank and smoked hookahs. But "since early this month, we started seeing families coming back," he said. "Now we have just one room for the men."
At the city courthouse on Saturday, the docket listed nine trials and hearings for crimes: two thefts of vehicles; two murders, one kidnapping, one possession of illegal weapons, two aggravated assaults and one possession of stolen property.
Assistant Judge Varrack Bassam seemed pleased to observe that he and the other judges could issue judgments without interference from the state.
"Before the trial was a parody," he said. If a friend of the government came to the court charged with a crime, "someone would come into the court connected with the regime and say it was better not to sentence him."
Last week, he noted, four judges were dismissed because they had served as judges in the former government's special security court for political prisoners.
As people strolled past his sweets shop, Yossif Abod, 43, was bellowing to anyone who would listen about the old days, when government security officers would pop in at his store, inquire where his employees were from and force him to fire any who were from southern Iraq.
"One time they fired my entire staff," he complained. "I had to close."
Now, he added: "This doesn't happen anymore. We need more security, but we are free from pressure now."
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 10/30/2003 5:33 AM (GMT -6) | | It's No Vietnam
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: October 30, 2003
Since 9/11, we've seen so much depraved violence we don't notice anymore when we hit a new low. Monday's attacks in Baghdad were a new low. Just stop for one second and contemplate what happened: A suicide bomber, driving an ambulance loaded with explosives, crashed into the Red Cross office and blew himself up on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. This suicide bomber was not restrained by either the sanctity of the Muslim holy day or the sanctity of the Red Cross. All civilizational norms were tossed aside. This is very unnerving. Because the message from these terrorists is: "There are no limits. We have created our own moral universe, where anything we do against Americans or Iraqis who cooperate with them is O.K."
What to do? The first thing is to understand who these people are. There is this notion being peddled by Europeans, the Arab press and the antiwar left that "Iraq" is just Arabic for Vietnam, and we should expect these kinds of attacks from Iraqis wanting to "liberate" their country from "U.S. occupation." These attackers are the Iraqi Vietcong.
Hogwash. The people who mounted the attacks on the Red Cross are not the Iraqi Vietcong. They are the Iraqi Khmer Rouge — a murderous band of Saddam loyalists and Al Qaeda nihilists, who are not killing us so Iraqis can rule themselves. They are killing us so they can rule Iraqis.
Have you noticed that these bombers never say what their political agenda is or whom they represent? They don't want Iraqis to know who they really are. A vast majority of Iraqis would reject them, because these bombers either want to restore Baathism or install bin Ladenism.
Let's get real. What the people who blew up the Red Cross and the Iraqi police fear is not that we're going to permanently occupy Iraq. They fear that we're going to permanently change Iraq. The great irony is that the Baathists and Arab dictators are opposing the U.S. in Iraq because — unlike many leftists — they understand exactly what this war is about. They understand that U.S. power is not being used in Iraq for oil, or imperialism, or to shore up a corrupt status quo, as it was in Vietnam and elsewhere in the Arab world during the cold war. They understand that this is the most radical-liberal revolutionary war the U.S. has ever launched — a war of choice to install some democracy in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world.
Most of the troubles we have encountered in Iraq (and will in the future) are not because of "occupation" but because of "empowerment." The U.S. invasion has overturned a whole set of vested interests, particularly those of Iraq's Sunni Baathist establishment, and begun to empower instead a whole new set of actors: Shiites, Kurds, non-Baathist Sunnis, women and locally elected officials and police. The Qaeda nihilists, the Saddamists, and all the Europeans and the Arab autocrats who had a vested interest in the old status quo are threatened by this.
Many liberals oppose this war because they can't believe that someone as radically conservative as George W. Bush could be mounting such a radically liberal war. Some, though, just don't believe the Bush team will do it right.
The latter has been my concern. Can this administration, whose national security team is so divided, effectively stay the course in Iraq? Has the president's audacity in waging such a revolutionary war outrun his ability to articulate what it's about and to summon Americans for the sacrifices victory will require? Can the president really be a successful radical liberal on Iraq, while being such a radical conservative everywhere else — refusing to dismiss one of his own generals who insults Islam, turning a deaf ear to hints of corruption infecting the new Baghdad government as it's showered with aid dollars, calling on reservists and their families to bear all the burdens of war while slashing taxes for the rich, and undertaking the world's biggest nation-building project with few real allies?
I don't know. But here's what I do know: If Mr. Bush doesn't treat the next year as his second term, when he must do all the right things in Iraq without regard to politics, it is the only second term he's going to see.
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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