The State of Iraq

The State of Iraq

Kenneth Hacker


July 17, 2007

We hear that there will be a major assessment of how the war is going. This will be provided to the American people by top military leaders and then the White House. For now, consider the following observations. A top aide (Hassan al-Suneid) to Iraqi leader Nouri al-Maliki, says that the United States has embarrassed the Iraqi government by commiting human rights violations and treating the nation like an "experiment in a U.S. lab." (Associated Press, July 15, 2007). Still, the Iraqi government is saying it can handle the situation left by the redeployment (back to America) of U.S. troops.

The Iraqi war continues to cost American taxpayers about $8 billion and hundreds of soldiers each month. Americans have a right to ask if the war is worth the cost and are not likely to fall victims to fantasy claims like "If we dont fight them there, they will follow us home." Together, the war in Iraq and the sustained military fighting in Afghanistan are costing taxpayers $12 billion per month (Associated Press, July 10, 2007).

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July 15, 2007

The news from Iraq continues to look like the same old, same old with some signs of military progress. The problem is that the necessary political progress is still not happening significantly.

Totay, we learned that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said that Iraqi forces are capable of defending themselves and that American troops can leave at any time (Associated Press, July 15, 2007).



January 5, 2007

There is a great deal of talk about Bush's intention to increase troop numbers in Iraq. What amazes me about this is that no one can prove that such an increase will help or harm the war. It is just a hunch either way. Sadly, it appears that more soldiers will die as more Americans what the mission is the for the United States in Iraq.

People with more intelligence than comedians like Fox TV's Dennis Miller know that the hanging of Saddam Hussein was not a simple act of justice without problems. Capital punishment, in any society, carries symbolic weight with message both about the executed and the executor. There is little doubt that Hussein deserved to die, but this fact alone does not justify how and when the execution occurred. Mindless blathering about how he got what he deserved and how well the U.S. "brought him to justice" miss the point about how all political actions send important messages. If we are not careful, many of those messages end up recruiting more enemies.

Charles Krauthammer makes some interesting observations about the Hussein execution. In a column called "Tragedy for the new Iraq," he says that the execution was a "rushed, botched, unholy mess that exposed the hopelessly sectarian nature of the Maliki government." (Jan. 5, 2007).

The execution was not out of American hands as U.S. force was used to bring him to the execution and to fly his body back to his home town. Our nation has been shaping the current the current government of Iraq. We have een lecturing it about the rule of law. We have been preaching the need for Sunnis to be shown respect as the Shia dominate the political system. Yet we allowed the execution to occur on the first day of the Sunni religious holiday (Eid al-Adha). We ignored the fact that this violated Iraqi law.

Krauthammer observes that the Iraqi constitution requires the signature of the president and two vice presidents of the nation for an execution. This would involve Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd input into the authorization process. Maliki avoided it and the president did not sign.

Beside the symbolic and legal issues of the execution, there is the lost opportunity side. Perhaps Dennis Miller needed to watch a dirty leader taunted and hung in a medieval setting but the rest of the world would have benefited from a more controlled process. The rush to execute may have provided closure for the Millerites, but is denied closure for the Kurds in Iraq who wished to see Hussein tried for his genocidal killing of Kurds.

Krauthammer argues that the hanging party, constituted of Maliki hacks, turned the scene into one of intense sectarian violence with only Hussein not shouting. The people in the room shouted "Moqtada, Moqtada" who is another muderous extremist. The Dawa death sqads are killing Sunnis like Hussein and his Sunnis used to kill the Shiites. What kind of progress are we talking about?

If the United States is fighting to support one sectarian group hellbent on dominating others, we may be gaining reasons to exit the failing state of Iraq.


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March 6, 2006

It is now argued that the war in Iraq has become a "communal civil war." Has it been this all along, or is it still just on the edges of becoming such a civil war? The war and occupation now enter into a fourth year and there still appears to be society torn by violence and still unable to pull together a strong unified government that can stop insurgencies and anarchy. This does not mean that Iraq will not eventualy become stable. It suggests that no one has come up with a coherent set of strategies to make stability come soon.