Saturday, May 14, 2005
Steven Vincent is in Iraq (right now!) and talks to a local Sheikh:
"Al-Zarqawi is a fiction, imaginary," asserts the Sheikh. "A ghost created by America to justify its repressive actions against the Iraqi people." Trying not to display my increasing irritation, I ask him what kind of goverment he would prefer in Iraq. "The Monarchy," he answers, revealing something, I think, about the Sunni mindset. "The Monarchy was best for our country, until America undermined it."
It's getting near the time for late afternoon prayers, and I'm running short of patience anyway. But I can't resist one last question. "You blame America for everything--Saddam, the wars, terrorism, even the aggressive attitudes of the Iraqi people. Don't you think Iraqis must share some responsibility for these problems?"
"No, not at all," the Sheikh says blandly, prayer beads slipping between his thumb and forefinger. "Everything is America's fault, Iraqis have no responsibility in the matters. Before America, Iraqis were a quiet, peaceful people."
I close my notebook, Layla and I rise from the sofa. As he escorts us across the courtyard, Sheikh Y. asks me to make sure I convey his words "to the American people"--oh, don't worry about that, my friend, I think...
Functional societies require a sense of responsibility from their members. One of the details that Vincent paints in his book is the amount of trash that accumulates on the streets of Iraq.
Someday, maybe, the streets will be clean and this Sheikh will be laughed at as an old excentric fool.
Well, this type of obduracy, stemming from such a deontological depth within the individual and breadth across the population (it simply has to be a critical mass of the population), has long been in evidence and cannot be good news. That is to say we could be facing a vast catch-22 such that only a prolonged, deftly handled American led set of strategies, in the decades ahead, will carry the day. If that is the case, both the Left and the Islamicists will be formidable enemies of classical liberal interests for a long time indeed, i.e., both the ideological war comprised of propaganda and other strategems as well as the military war will be very, very long and difficult in terms of requisite endurance, holding to the necessary vision, etc. (Recall the ebb and flow of the Cold War for example.)
Hope I'm wrong, but strongly suspect I'm not.
Or maybe guys like Omar and his brothers are the minority and Iraq is unfortunately going to have to go through a few more generations of horrible regimes to 'get' it.
Who knows?