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Historians catch up with Jihad Watch. I was recently sent a piece from a blog saying that we were "racists" for never believing that democracy would take hold in Iraq the way it did in Japan and Germany after World War II. This charge ignores, of course, the fact that neither Hugh Fitzgerald nor I have ever argued this on the basis of race, but on the basis of the ineluctable Sunni/Shi'ite hostility, and of the strong attachment to Sharia, which both Sunnis and Shi'ites regard as the law of Allah and hence preferable to any law based on human consensus. "Historians Offer Dismal Iraq Forecast," by Charles J. Hanley for The Associated Press:
To historians and others pondering Iraq, forecasting a final outcome for that sad land is like finding your way through one of its "shamal" sandstorms. You may not know where you're headed, but you know it's going to be dark.The Middle East historian David Fromkin sees a breakup of the jerry-built nation. Phebe Marr, doyenne of Iraq scholars, sees "distrust and suspicion" too deep to overcome. "Bleak," concludes Baghdad University's Saad al-Hadithi.
"At the moment," said the British historian Niall Ferguson, "a happy ending has a 1-in-100 look about it."
In interviews with The Associated Press, few experts see much chance that President Bush's plan to add 21,500 troops to the U.S. force in Baghdad and western Iraq will suppress either the anti-U.S. insurgency or the bloody underground warfare between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, or induce a political settlement among the Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions.
The Senate this week is expected to begin action on a nonbinding resolution repudiating the Bush troop buildup. The measure was introduced by the Democratic-majority but has attracted some Republican support.
Mohamed el-Sayed Said, of Cairo's al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said he expects the growing U.S. political opposition to the war will lead at some point to a redeployment of American troops to northern Iraq's Kurdistan and to elsewhere in the Gulf region.
After that, said this Arab scholar, "events will take their own course, which is basically generalized civil war."
Posted by Robert at January 22, 2007 6:32 AM
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I've always known it was an impossible goal. If a lay person knows this, how come the neo-cons, the Generals, GW, Condoleeza, and an assortment of politicians wish to ignore this fact? I'm not against the war, God knows we need to be killing these bad people preferably in their own patio, but if the facade is going to be to bring democracy to them, we must play smarter, redeploy, and change the rules of engagement for our troop's sake. Federalize, partition, create a Kurdistan. Start an insurgency in Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, for now.
More to come.
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at January 22, 2007 7:15 AM
If Iraq breaks up into three new states or tries to hold together it will indeed be the same difference-lots of killing thanks to ancient Islamic hatreds. That'll be bad for the people involved but that'll beenefit the infidel world.
When Muslims kill one another they tend to leave infidels alone. Cruel sounding, but true. The West won't even have to stir that pot because Islamic nature will take its course regardless. Maybe the ever meddlesome Iranians and Saudis will then see how much trouble supporting their brothers really is too.
at January 22, 2007 7:42 AM
One of my beefs with the interventions in the ME--starting with the rescue of the Al-Saba family farm aka Kuwait--has been that history happens. Another is that we shouldn't be investing the lives o our youth in Sykes and Picot's post-Ottoman lines. Perhaps this is why the Iraqi gable went so awry.
Posted by: Kepha at January 22, 2007 8:52 AM
American troops leaving Iraq + civil war there --> Iran will intervene and end up controlling Iraq.
How do you like the idea of Iran controlling Iraq's oil?
And Turkey controlling the Iraqi kurdish areas?
Not good at all. Removing Saddam hurt our national interests immensely.
Posted by: george_rem at January 22, 2007 9:59 AM
Greater Persia here we come! Will Iran end up controlling Iraq's Shiite and getting the revenue from sales of the oil that Iraq's Shiites sit on?
Posted by: dennisw at January 22, 2007 10:15 AM
Greater Persia here we come! Will Iran end up controlling Iraq's Shiite and getting the revenue from sales of the oil that Iraq's Shiites sit on?
Ya think?
Posted by: george_rem at January 22, 2007 10:31 AM
"At the moment," said the British historian Niall Ferguson, "a happy ending has a 1-in-100 look about it."
-- from the article above
Academic entrepreneur and universal expert Niall Ferguson (that million-dollar house extracted or extorted from NYU, and kept as a cadeau de rupture, though it was Ferguson who did the rupturing in order to accept -- onward and upward with The Career -- the Harvard deal, and then there is all that television, and that world-bestiding Pontification -- Ex Ponto and Ex Cathedra -- About Everything) tells us that a "happy ending" in Iraq is remote.
He has it backwards, for he, like a great many others who know feel qualified to write about Islam based on nothing more than the fact that Islam is there to be commented on, does not understand that the correct definition of a "happy ending" is different for the Camp of Infidels (an unrecognized camp, but a camp nonetheless) and the Camp of Islam.
An ending may be defined as "happy" for the Camp of Infidels if it leaves the other camp, the Camp of Islam, significantly weakened. And that weakening is certain if, but only if, the Americans get out promptly, and stop their squandering of men (3,057 dead, 24,000 wounded), of money (now $700 billion in spent or committed funds resulting from the Iraq misadventure), of materiel (hard to quantify right now), of morale (not susceptible of quantification). And above all, stop the insane policy of trying to shore up the collective position of the Sunnis in Iraq (even as some Sunnis keep up their murderous attacks on those Americans), and getting the Shi'a to make compromises which they will not make, or will make only feignedly, in order to keep the Americans around a bit longer to keep fighting those Sunnis, keep supplying that military training and, above all, the Shi'a calculate, keep adding to the arms (for the cries of "we'll do the job ourselves and you can leave, if only you give us all those nice shiny and very advanced weapons we need").
What should have been said is this:
If the Americans exhibit the minimal intelligence about this, and get out, there will definitely be, from the American (and other Infidel) standpoint, a "happy ending." And this should have been foreseen many years ago.
And it was. But only, alas, in one place: right here. It was all set down, in detail, on several hundred occasions.
Posted by: Hugh at January 22, 2007 10:36 AM
Hugh, American troops cant just get out of Iraq. They should pull out to the oilfields and hold them indefinitely. Leaving Iraq will simply invite the Iranian/Turkish (the 2 real military powers in the region, Syria is a joke) takeover of Iraq and its various oilfields.
Posted by: george_rem at January 22, 2007 10:55 AM
Robert quoted an email that said that
we were "racists" for never believing that democracy would take hold in Iraq
I think it is "racist" to think that Western Judeo-Christian values that developed over thousands of years, with plenty of groundwork laid at each difficult stage (Magna Carta and much more), is something that every culture in every nation aspires to, regardless of their history and background.
They don't. They have their own cultures, their own histories, their own values, their own identity. It is "racist" to ignore the influence that Islam has in Islamic countries. It is "racist" to ignore what Islam, the foundation for their beliefs, has to say about "kaffirocracy", the corrupt government of man that is not required to follow the minutae of law and total regulation of every tiny aspect of life that Allah laid down in the Qur'an.
How dare these "multiculturists" try to obliterate all the world's cultures, and try to replace it with one culture, their own? Do you think any of them, Bush or Carter or Rice or Limbaugh or any of them, study those cultures to learn what the values are, before they make their self-assured pronouncement that "they are just like us, they want the same things we do"?
Posted by: special_guest at January 22, 2007 11:14 AM
AND to ISREAL, may I say
Soloman's Temple had Lebonese cedars in it
at January 22, 2007 11:40 AM
The term 'racist' is tossed around by ignorant, self-righteous seditionists on a daily basis in the USA.
Posted by: Foehammer at January 22, 2007 11:50 AM
LOL...Historians offer dim picture of the future.
Historians are book bound moths who are afraid to live life. The only 2 historians worth anything were Teddy Roosevelt and Francis Parkman of over a hundred years ago as they actually experienced life.
Long stretch for modern historians to see Iraq is in city state Baghdad religious war and deem it now is Iraqi civil war. Well Kurds are Iraqi and they are behaving themselves as are most of Sunni and Shia outside the 30 mile ambush zone.
David Fromkin should stick with his moths and must or perhaps he could predict who is going to win the Colts Patriots game played last Sunday.
Posted by: Lame Cherry at January 22, 2007 1:30 PM
Interesting.. the islamos keep braying about their 'umma' and the caliphate thy wish to establish.
Any rational person would think that breaking up Iraq is a step in the other direction.. good for US but not for them.
[But then why would a rational person desire a caliphate?]
So our best hhope is they do break up their countries and keep fighting in factions.
Their best hope is to keep unterwandering.. ie. infiltrating bilad-al-kufr or whatever they call it. Let the useful isdiots in guvments and MSM do the groundwork in shutting up the locals and making them properly submissive "für das islamische Herrenvolk".
So both the 'umma' and the PC West are blind and stupid. Only they are exploting our weaknesses better whuile blind for their own.
We on the other hand, are not in power. But WE know BOTH their and our own weaknesses and strengths.
But how do we get anyone who actually wields power to listen?!
Civil War in the Middle East is a GOOD THING!! if the Sowdis are up in alarm about the prospect.. I say BRING IT ON!!!
The faster war comes to SOWdi Arabia the sooner they will have to refocus their attention away from unterwandering the West with their filthy mosks and madrazas..
Bush.. are you reading this? Pity da fool. Money don't do u no good, Bush when you're paying jizya and your granddaughters are being groped by men older than yourself. so STAND UP you spineless money-grubber! YOU KNOW WHAT THEY ARE UP TO!!
Posted by: MeanieMo at January 22, 2007 2:44 PM
I agree with the guy who wrote that we should redeploy to the oilfields. And instead of giving them nice shiny advanced weapons we should do the opposite. Collect as much of their arms as we can. Then distribute knives and swords generously.
And leave.
Redeploy to the oilfields under the guise of "we have to protect and redistribute" the oil wealth.
And we should siphon off enough to reimburse the American taxpayer for his contribution to the war.
Posted by: MeanieMo at January 22, 2007 4:45 PM
I agree with the guy who wrote that we should redeploy to the oilfields. And instead of giving them nice shiny advanced weapons we should do the opposite. Collect as much of their arms as we can. Then distribute knives and swords generously.
And leave.
Redeploy to the oilfields under the guise of "we have to protect and redistribute" the oil wealth.
And we should siphon off enough to reimburse the American taxpayer for his contribution to the war.
Posted by: MeanieMo at January 22, 2007 4:45 PM
Knowing well the Islamic mentality and their aptitude to kill others and themselves the best strategy would br to leave Iraq but destroy a lot of theri infrastructure.
Then leave the country even if it branded as a defeat.
Thew result will be the muslims will be busy killing each other.
Then do what Iran is doing.
Supply arma to the muslims who hate Iran.
In other words turn their own frankenstein policy on themselves.The they will know what thir policy is worth.
Instead of getting USA soilders risk their lives,it is better for us to kill them themselves( Sorry to say that but for our own safety we have sometimes to be brutal eventhough I hate be like this and say this).
In between when a potential threat target is located just bomb them so they cannot kill our soilders.Their jihadis dont care a damn about their own life as well their family life nor for their childresn future. Why should we care.
Atleast our soilders have a family life and are normal human biengs.Why risk them when we have got sateelites and steatlh bombers.Use them only instead.
The basis of jihad is the finance they get from these countries. Just keep sure that they are in the stone age and dont possesss WMD or the capability to get some.
As far as Pakistan foes we all know its a double game. If Armitage really threatened the Mushaaraf guy he can do it again or We can always tie up with India ( a far relaible trustworthy ally which has faced terrosim for years sponsored by pakistan.This will make the pakis rethink about their double game strategy and keep them busy defending themsleves rather than propogating and sponsoring terorsit and providing them safe sanctuar ,rather than putting up an act of helping the war on terror.
The main idea is to keep these Islmic radicals busy with defending themselves rather than devising new ideas to harm democracies of the world.
at January 22, 2007 7:27 PM
Posted by: Rajesh_singh
"The main idea is to keep these Islmic radicals busy with defending themselves rather than devising new ideas to harm democracies of the world."
Bravo!
Could not have said it better myself.
Trust me on one thing...most Americans who get it do not have a high regard for Pakistan. I think we are starting to realize we have been played like a fool. Hell Islam has played us all for fools for 1400 years.
Not to worry....we Americans always sort of figure it out...
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.” Winston Churchill
Posted by: greatcometof1577 at January 22, 2007 10:59 PM
Well, I felt if the 20,000 troops were deployed last year, they might have a fighting chance of holding the country together. Then again, if it falls to civil war, let nature take it's course; democracy is there to stay; all of them will starve to death if they don't.
In short, they'll all unify under democracy or splinter into separate smaller democracy's. I'm sure they'll eventually see a stronger economy will be in the unification processes, but most of all, I think we should get out of there until they make up their own minds to which way they want to go. The process has already been established.
Posted by: Jeff at January 22, 2007 11:33 PM
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