But aside from being the time of Ashoura, recent days in Iraq were filled with negotiation to form a government after the elections held on ...
But aside from being the time of Ashoura, recent days in Iraq were filled
with negotiation to form a government after the elections held on January 30.
Although the Sunni party finished the election with only 5 seats it held the
trump card of intransigence. The desirability of creating an 'inclusive' Iraq
led Prime Minister Iyad Allawie to
target="_blank">suggest
that the Sunnis be mollified in part through concessions. This is a code word
for spoils in exchange for desisting from violence.
Allawi told The Associated Press that the alliance must change its platform
of purging Sunnis who were members of Saddam's Baath Party from government
positions if it wants national unity. ''The alliance talks about
de-Baathification.
I hope if they get control and they're chosen to be the ones running the
country, I sincerely hope that they revisit these issues in their program and
re-discuss it with a view of having reconciliation and national unity,''
Allawi said. ''We cannot afford in this country, for now, to go on a route
different to that of national unity,'' said Allawi, who spoke English in the
interview. Otherwise, ''it will throw the country into problems, severe
problems.'' The key challenge for the new government will be ending the
insurgency that kills dozens of people every week. Most Iraqis say only
negotiations will end the attacks.
What Allawi fears is that the currently elected politicians take their
mandate at face value. The recent
target="_blank">assassination
of Lebanese politician Rafiq Hariri -- which interestingly enough may
involve 12 Australians -- and the
target="_blank">attack
on Shiite worshipers during their holy days are reminders of the alternative
Ba'athist method of bombing one's way into power. Even though the Ba'athists
have no chance whatsoever of prevailing against the US militarily, they could
plausibly hope to convince the Shi'ites and Kurds that attacks on them will not
stop until Americans are evicted from Iraq; after which of course there will be
even less to stop the Ba'athists from redoubling their onslaughts on these
formerly subjugated peoples. Yet this tactic of intimidation has worked time and
again: on Madrid; on Clinton and Carter by Kim Jong Il; on Manila by the Abu
Sayyaf, so there is no reason to suppose it will not be tried again. John Lucaks
book target="_blank">Five Days in London, May 1940
describes how Hitler came within an ace of intimidating Britain into submission
without landing a single soldier on its shores. What he had not counted on was
Winston Churchill -- his sheer obstinacy and singular inability to accept peace
with a tyrant in preference to extinction in defiance. "Even as a quarter
of a million British troops were being evacuated from Dunkirk, Churchill
struggled to reverse the British government's policy of appeasement. In this, he
faced opposition from several quarters, including prominent figures within his
own Conservative Party."
target="_blank">Samizdata
argues that Britain was defeated in the summer of 1940 and that
Churchill, to his everlasting credit, tricked it into believing otherwise by
holding up a mesmeric vision of itself. He snatched victory from defeat; let us
hope that our generation will not find a way to do the reverse.
COMMENTS