Middle East

Jan 9, 2007

Page 2 of 2
SPEAKING FREELY
One last chance for sanity in Iraq
By Ramzy Baroud

number of US casualties at a higher rate than the present - keeping in mind that to date more than 3,000 US soldiers have been killed in the war - and will make the war bill a whole lot more expensive - about $350 billion has been spent without even an emblematic constructive outcome.

Most of the new troops will be positioned in Sunni areas in

Baghdad and al-Anbar province, seen as the heart of the resistance. Only a naive person would argue that such a stratagem would lead to anything other than greater bloodshed and further enlivening and validating the so-called insurgents.

Although the "Sunni insurgency" remains the prime target of the US military in Iraq, there is a growing realization among US officials and war generals that the unruly Shi'ite militias and their death squads are a greater cause of instability and violence.

Ironically, the rise of the Shi'ite militias was an early US strategy that put the many Shi'ite factions on a crash course with the Sunni resistance: thus dividing and weakening the Iraqis and lowering the risk of American casualties.

Now that the Iraqi army and police are composed mostly from those same militant thugs, many Iraqis find themselves victimized by their supposed national army and police force. Those who are expecting Iraqis to "take responsibility for their future" seem oblivious to the fact that the future of Iraq is most bleak under the current US-devised sectarianism where Sunnis are murdered with impunity and Shi'ites are blown up in their markets.

The humiliating execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein at the hands of masked Shi'ite guards purporting to be an executive arm of a legitimate government was indeed the last attestation that will forever categorize the ongoing strife in Iraq as one between Shi'ite and Sunni, the former allied to invading foreigners and the latter fighting for mere survival.

The fact that the inner Iraqi strife is now categorically defined according to sectarian lines, Bush must realize that the situation in Iraq has reached a point of unprecedented sensitivity, and his macho politics and infamous stubbornness can lead only to further disasters. His actions this week and expected moves to follow will lead to a situation that neither his party nor the Democrats with their blurred policy outlook can repair.

Bush must immediately provide a roadmap for withdrawal from Iraq to be carried out in stages to allow for synchronized, constructive regional and international roles that will engage the United Nations, the Arab League and, most important, all Iraqi social groups; otherwise, a divided Iraq with all the ills and regional mayhem it will bring about will remain an inescapable last option.

Ramzy Baroud's latest book, The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press), is available at Amazon.com and also from the University of Michigan Press.

(Copyright 2007 Ramzy Baroud.)

Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.

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