For all the talk about Iraq and whether we should send more troops, one subject has gone ignored: Israel. What happens to America’s closest ally in the region in case of a wider war marked by more anarchy and violence?
While the unexpected crisis involving Israel and Lebanon rages on with no end in sight, the United States needs to stay focused on the Iraqi crisis of its own making, as it becomes clear that U.S. efforts are not going well.
President George W. Bush’s strategy of launching a “shock and awe” campaign was designed to send the message that resistance to superior U.S. firepower is futile, but it’s not turning out as planned.
Any notion of pluralism, let alone democracy, is not only new to Iraq; it threatens to upset a regional balance of power, made worse by confusion among U.S. experts over which group comprises the majority in Iraq.
Because the United States has set a high standard for press freedom, any perceived weakening in U.S. protections provides cover for authoritarian regimes to justify crackdowns on their own press and others.
Many American progressives have never acknowledged the tragedy of the failed spring uprisings in 1991, what countless Iraqis at the time called their anti-Saddam intifada.
The Bush administration looks like it has finally scored a ringing success in Iraq. But, if one objective of Sunday’s elections was to help defeat Iraq’s ongoing insurgencies, then the exercise failed.
The question now is how Iraq’s next government will handle the insurgents. Before Sunday, they threatened voters. But U.S. troops led the effort to secure polling stations, while more than half of Iraq’s eligible voters defied insurgent threats and exercised their first real chance for self-empowerment in history.
