Friday, April 25, 2008
Whistling in the dark
The new U.S. embassy being built in Iraq is seen by Iraqi citizens to be another display of arrogance and a signal of our intention to be there for a long time. It is a huge structure, that will employ hundreds of people and have a yearly maintenance cost of over a billion dollars. Iraqi citizens have displayed outrage that their neighborhoods remain in shambles with little or no re-construction going on while we can erect such a monstrous structure whose cost over-runs have exceeded all expectations, with no end in sight.
Meanwhile, Shiite cleric Muqtata Al Sadr has ordered his militias to stop fighting Iraqi led troops and concentrate on killing Americans. It doesn't matter one whit to him that it was American troops who, in removing Saddam Hussein, tipped the balance of power to the Shiite majority and allowed Al Sadr to become a prominent leader and possibly the next ruler of the country.
Regardless of how large the size of our embassy or how much money we continue to
pour down rat holes that lead nowhere, the grim fact remains that, in the end, it will be the Iraqi people who will have to sort out their differences and try to unite their splintered country and live in peace with each other. That will be a tall order indeed, given their past track record, but our continued involvement, regardless of how necessary some of us think it is to do so, can only forestall the inevitable... like putting off a root canal while the tooth continues to fester.
If Muqtata Al Sadr's militias begins an all out attack on U.S. forces, all bets are off and what started out to be, at least in our eyes, a rescue mission, will become a full-fledged war that could possibly include Iran and wouldn't that be one hell of a new way forward.
George Morin
Auburn, Ga.
Meanwhile, Shiite cleric Muqtata Al Sadr has ordered his militias to stop fighting Iraqi led troops and concentrate on killing Americans. It doesn't matter one whit to him that it was American troops who, in removing Saddam Hussein, tipped the balance of power to the Shiite majority and allowed Al Sadr to become a prominent leader and possibly the next ruler of the country.
Regardless of how large the size of our embassy or how much money we continue to
pour down rat holes that lead nowhere, the grim fact remains that, in the end, it will be the Iraqi people who will have to sort out their differences and try to unite their splintered country and live in peace with each other. That will be a tall order indeed, given their past track record, but our continued involvement, regardless of how necessary some of us think it is to do so, can only forestall the inevitable... like putting off a root canal while the tooth continues to fester.
If Muqtata Al Sadr's militias begins an all out attack on U.S. forces, all bets are off and what started out to be, at least in our eyes, a rescue mission, will become a full-fledged war that could possibly include Iran and wouldn't that be one hell of a new way forward.
George Morin
Auburn, Ga.
