For all the endless debate about strategy and tactics, past and present about Iraq, it is astonishing how little the public debate in this country entertains the idea that the occupation itself is the cause of the unrest and violence in the country.
This isn’t an original and unheard of concept. I know that. Indeed, it’s common sense. But in our public debate it is what we might call the logic that dare not speak its name.
The point occurred to me when looking at the discussion going on at PostGlobal.
Of course, the bitter irony is that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. As I wrote a couple years ago, the really awful thing about the situation we’ve gotten ourselves into is that we’re both the glue holding Iraq together and the solvent tearing it apart. And neither is this to say that there aren’t all sorts of hatreds and social pathologies helping Iraq rip itself apart on its own. Iraq’s Sunni minority had its heel on the neck of the Shi’a majority long before the US become the dominant power in the region — for many centuries, by some measures. But like a wound that is not allowed to heal and thus becomes infected again and again it is folly to assume that Iraq can set itself right as long as the occupation lasts. Particularly because it is one that fundamentally lacks legitimacy, which has always been the heart of the matter.
Late Update: TPM Reader WG responds …
You write that “the occupation itself is the cause of the unrest and violence in the country.” I think that’s partially true, but more importantly, the occupation is preventing any resolution of the conflict. Civil wars end when one side knows it has lost. As long as we are in Iraq the insurgency will not know it has lost. Both Republicans and Democrats say they want the U.S. leave — Iraqis realize that the occupation isn’t forever. Until the U.S. has left, hope will still live in the hearts of the Sunni fighters. The Iraqi government, already cheated of sovereign legitimacy, will not be able to establish credibility of force.
It’s Catch-22, Iraqi-style. The U.S. canât leave Iraq until its government can stand by itself. The Iraqi government canât stand by itself while the U.S. is propping it up.
I think I basically agree with this, though I don’t think the reality of occupation is merely an after the fact aspect of the problem in Iraq. Imperialism casts a long shadow in the region. And we fall under it.
