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COMMENTARY
April 14, 2004
Sistani wins?
The Iraqi "uprising" seems to be over -- after days rather than the weeks I expected. Ceasefires have been declared that are more like surrenders. In Fallujah the "insurgents" -- a mixture of imported terrorists and local hoodlums who enjoyed the run of the town -- agreed to a ceasefire in which they surrendered some weapons and allowed legitimate Iraqi police to resume their stations. And the black-clad thugs of Moktaba al-Sadr's "Mahdi's army" have cut and run from their roadblocks in Karbala Kufa and Najaf. At no point did the Shia masses or any other masses rise to join these crazies. Indeed most of the cities of Iraq remained quiet. In fatwa after fatwa the prestigious mainstream Ayatollah Sistani told the fanatics to cease and desist. But an American promise to send tanks through their barriers persuaded them that their insurrection was over. In the course of which Sistani has undeservedly recovered all the influence he lost when he himself asked for peaceful demonstrations against the occupation authorities and insufficient numbers turned out. It is said (by such as the pompous British historian Niall Ferguson in the Daily Telegraph) that the U.S. administration has through ignorance failed to learn from the British experience in Iraq just after the First World War. The British inspired an uprising then which started with "mad mullahs" preaching in all the same mosques. The reality is that the Pentagon sent officers to Iraq who were vividly aware of the previous British failure and have tried hard to avoid the same traps. Paul Bremer's administration has under nearly impossible circumstances managed to remain in constant communication with every significant Iraqi faction -- a remarkable stickhandling feat. The unambiguous U.S. promise to turn over the government of Iraq to Iraqis on June 30th is the key to that success. Iraqis were left in no doubt from the beginning that the Americans wouldn't be staying. Despite extraordinary provocations -- including an unceasing barrage of poisonous lies from such Arab media as Al Jazeera -- their self-interest remains engaged on the side of public order. And while a great deal of mess remains to be sorted especially in Fallujah the worst threats have been confronted. Nevertheless the country may have proven itself ungovernable. The panicked retreat of the new Iraqi police and soldiers from their stations in places like Kufa in the first moments of what was an unimpressive "uprising" bodes ill for the next regime. Though politically incorrect it must be said there are deep cultural reasons why Arabs are unable to field reliable armies. And the provision of a few months' drill along Western lines cannot compensate for this. The mindset remains hit-and-run as much on the side of the government as on the side of the insurgents. One sees the same phenomenon in police and security work throughout the Middle East -- in Egypt for instance where the Mubarak government is compelled to send hundreds even thousands of poorly-trained poorly-disciplined though often over-armed white-flannelled police to arrest small numbers of Islamist troublemakers. Similarly compact Israeli forces have repeatedly put huge Arab armies to flight. This fecklessness assures domestic political arrangements in which the most ruthless easily prevail. It is at the root of every Arab constitutional failure. In other words writers such as Victor Davis Hanson are right to ask the question Did Saddam create Fallujah, or did Fallujah create Saddam? And it's not a chicken-and-egg question the answer is ultimately that Fallujahs create Saddams. We in the West have forgotten that our own democracies so far as they still function depend upon strict discipline rational thought and chain-of-command to quickly defeat anyone who refuses to play by democracy' s rules. I am struck in correspondence by the inability of most to grasp that democracy does not just happen. It is instead something unnatural something rare in human history. It is imposed by will and is not self-defending. If the French and Spanish and Canadians don't get this how can we expect Iraqis to learn it from scratch? (Well perhaps they have the advantage of less nonsense to unlearn.) Quodcumque as we say in Latin. ("Whatever.") So many of the problems of the world are insoluble. Bringing civility to Iraq is one more. Meanwhile back in the United States the ludicrous spectacle of Congressional hearings into who knew what before 9/11 continues. Imagine if the U.S. had spent the Second World War discussing who knew what before Pearl Harbour. That would have been a Second World War which the Japanese won. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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