Iraq handover
So the US, not wanting to be in the position of crying at its own party, has handed over the reins of Iraqi self-rule 2 days early. The assessment of the experts? A lot of window-dressing, an insubstantial "publicity stunt". The first link above at the Baltimore Sun also summarizes views of regional experts on the future of Iraq, but perhaps a more enjoyable way of learning about the region is to listen to Rashid Khalidi's Commonwealth Club interview from 25 May. The Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia, Khalidi began writing his book well before the the ill-begotten war in Iraq took place.
Some points from Professor Khalidi:
- Military occupation which has no internationl legitimacy always engenders resistance - always and everywhere
- The peoples of the Middle east in particular, have strongly resisted Western countrol over their countries and resources -- for over 2 centuries... Our intentions don't matter -- it is perceptions of the people that matter -- in view of their own history and experiences. This is a region that has been occupied again and again and again and it is against that background that they view our actions in the Middle East...
- There is a strong tradition in favour of constitutionalism, strong desire for limitation on the absolute power of the state and strong aspirations for democracy in Middle East. It is, sadly enough, the Western powers that have sabotaged democracy in Middle East
- Oil has been controlled by outsiders for most of the 20th century in the Middle East
- Question of Palestine has been major factor of alienating people in the Middle East since 1917
Folks in the Middle East are apt to judge the West by its actions, not by the words of some of these leaders.
He gives us some great quotes by the West on the Middle East over the years --
"Oh ye Egyptians, they may say to you that I have not made an expedition hither for any other object than that of of abolishing your religion, but tell the slanderers, but I have not come to you except for the purpose of restoring your rights from the hands of the oppressors..."
--Napoleon Bonaparte July 1798 Alexandria w/in 4 mos. Revolt ag. French
"Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators. It is the hope and desire of the British people, and the nations in alliance with them, that the Arab race may rise again to greatness and renown among the peoples of the earth.
--Sir Frederick Stanley Maude, Commander of the British Empire, 1917. Within 3 years, they had to quell an uprising in Fallujah, in which Sunnis and Shia were soon united, fighting against British imperial troops
"The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster. Our unfortunate troops, Indian and British, under hard conditions of climate and supply, are policiing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the wilfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad."
--TE Lawrence, August 1920
"Unlike many armies in the world you came not to conquer, not to occupy, but to liberate."
--Don Rumsfeld, speaking to US troops, April 2003
What happens next? With 160K occupation troops still on the ground, and the largest US embassy in the world operational, will the Iraqis truly believe they've got sovereignty?
posted by claudine |Added at
2:34 PM| |
iraq, politics
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