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I’m probably naive. I’m probably gullible. I’m one of those weak, lily-livered liberals, an early reincarnation of Jimmy Carter.
But the more I look at the mess in Iraq, the more I’m convinced that it can't be solved with weaponry.
I heard a mention on NPR that one of our generals over there, a few days before the new bombings, said that there were two things that he felt might tear Iraq entirely apart. One was a meltdown of its army and security forces; the other was a new attack on the Al-Askariya Mosque in Samarra. Well, we have at least one of those scenarios now in play.
I look at the Al-Askariya mosque, and I wonder what might have happened had we -- after its massive golden dome was destroyed in 2006 by the explosion that sparked the worst wave of sectarian violence the country had experienced up until now -- gone in there with a thousand engineers and volunteer workers, taken one of the billions we’re pouring into this war, and helped the Shia congregation rebuild their temple. I wonder if we couldn’t make the same offer right now, in the wake of the minarets being destroyed, and if it might not have some small effect on new outbreak of violence...
(Interesting that gee, with Iraqi police and security as well as our own troops guarding this most holy of Shia sites, terrorists still managed to bring in enough explosives to take down two minarets on opposite sides of the structure. Call me naive and gullible, but someone guarding the place had to let them inside...)
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, as we might expect, is blaming us for the destruction (he called it a "cursed American-Israeli scenario that aims to spread the turmoil and plant the hatred among the Muslim brethren"), and though he’s calling for peaceful protests, I think we can all read the sub-text there and figure out what’s really going to happen. I wonder here, too -- are we engaging in talks and negotiations with this man, who has ties to Iran, who has immense influence among the minority Shia population, and who might be able to help us curb the violence in this country if we can convince him that we’re not Sunni-sympathetic lackeys ourselves. But I doubt we’re doing that -- we’re too busy calling him the “radical anti-American Muslim cleric.” He may be all of those things... but aren’t we allowing him to remain so? Aren’t we making him a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Or am I just being naive and gullible again?
But the more I look at the mess in Iraq, the more I’m convinced that it can't be solved with weaponry.
I heard a mention on NPR that one of our generals over there, a few days before the new bombings, said that there were two things that he felt might tear Iraq entirely apart. One was a meltdown of its army and security forces; the other was a new attack on the Al-Askariya Mosque in Samarra. Well, we have at least one of those scenarios now in play.
I look at the Al-Askariya mosque, and I wonder what might have happened had we -- after its massive golden dome was destroyed in 2006 by the explosion that sparked the worst wave of sectarian violence the country had experienced up until now -- gone in there with a thousand engineers and volunteer workers, taken one of the billions we’re pouring into this war, and helped the Shia congregation rebuild their temple. I wonder if we couldn’t make the same offer right now, in the wake of the minarets being destroyed, and if it might not have some small effect on new outbreak of violence...
(Interesting that gee, with Iraqi police and security as well as our own troops guarding this most holy of Shia sites, terrorists still managed to bring in enough explosives to take down two minarets on opposite sides of the structure. Call me naive and gullible, but someone guarding the place had to let them inside...)
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, as we might expect, is blaming us for the destruction (he called it a "cursed American-Israeli scenario that aims to spread the turmoil and plant the hatred among the Muslim brethren"), and though he’s calling for peaceful protests, I think we can all read the sub-text there and figure out what’s really going to happen. I wonder here, too -- are we engaging in talks and negotiations with this man, who has ties to Iran, who has immense influence among the minority Shia population, and who might be able to help us curb the violence in this country if we can convince him that we’re not Sunni-sympathetic lackeys ourselves. But I doubt we’re doing that -- we’re too busy calling him the “radical anti-American Muslim cleric.” He may be all of those things... but aren’t we allowing him to remain so? Aren’t we making him a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Or am I just being naive and gullible again?