I only just got the chance to read the excellent speech that Senator Kennedy gave last night, on Iraq. It was well argued and well framed.
Much of the press commentary focused on the fact that this was the first time a U.S. Senator called clearly for a US withdrawal from Iraq. But the way he framed his argument was more nuanced, and better grounded, than that:
- The beginning of wisdom in this crisis is to define honest and realistic goals.
First, the goal of our military presence should be to allow the creation of a legitimate, functioning Iraqi government, not to dictate it.
Creating a full-fledged democracy won
Hi, Helena,
All your recent referances to South Africa have made me think hard.
This first quote of yours from Sen. Kennedy can maybe help me get started: “The beginning of wisdom in this crisis is to define honest and realistic goals.”
I think a better starting point mught be to expose the actual goals of the actual US aggression, which are still being operationalised at this moment.
I don’t think the US can be allowed to have any goals at all in Iraq, or anywhere else apart from the USA itself.
I have a big difficulty with your idea of “transition”, presuming it means “transition to democracy” in the short term. We in SA didn’t get so very far forward in 1994. What we got was that astonishing demonstration of collective public will. But the work we might call “building democracy” has been going on at a steady pace for a very long time, and still goes on.
Perhaps you know that this year is the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the South African Freedom Charter? So this year the African National Congress has declared a “year of the Freedom Charter” to remind us of how much remains to be done.
Perhaps this is part of what Kennedy is saying, i.e. there is no such thing as a single “transition moment”. So that is good, if that is what he means.
But then if you are looking at the longer term, you must look at the strategic realities in that long term, and if there is a predatory relationship in the strategic frame, it must be outed. Kennedy fails to do this, in my opinion. As a US senator and Democratic Party member he can’t really do it, because he is beholden to the same corporate hegemony as everybody else in the US. Or is that too cynical?
Iraq’s future is more than a matter of sensible management. If a crime has been committed and continues to be committed, it must be recognised as such, or there is no justice. That is also a lesson from South Africa. We can just about live with our situation because it is mostly out in the open, thanks partly to Bishop Tutu and others.
To live with Fallujah and Abu Ghraib and the rest the Iraqis will need more than an election or new “honest and realistic” goals from the US, as suggested by Kennedy. They will need truth about the past and the present.
Dominic, thanks for calling me on the “transition= transition to democracy” issue. You were right to. I’ve been thinking a lot about this, too. What is needed is a transition to national sovereignty and independence. Non-Iraqis can “suggest” that this or that specific form of governance might be preferable. But I agree with what I understand to be your position that the US government should be given no say on what that form should be.
I was actually at a really interesting conference on “transitional justice” yesterday, and I intend to blog about it in the next day or two. One thing that was evident was the need for clarity about what kind of “transition” everyone is talking about, since otherwise people can talk right past each other and/or propose off-the-shelf policy prescriptions that simply don’t fit.
Hi Helenna
Quote of yours
“We need to rethink the Pottery Barn rule. America cannot forever be the potter that sculpts Iraq
Salah, that’s a thought-provoking point you make.
However, the quote you attribute to me was actually from Sen. Kennedy’s speech. That might have been unclear, the way I presented it in the blog, since the fact that it was indented wasn’t clear at the “jump” off the front page. Sorry about that.
It is a new and positive development that eventually some Democrats openly call for a withdrawal in Senate, although I share the opinion of Dominic : it’s not enough. The US is guilty of an aggression war and should be held accountable for it and pay compensations to the Iraqis for all the destructions.
Concerning the UN role, unlike Helena, I’m not sure whether it’s still a “realistic” option. The US has put so much pressures on the UN in the Iraq case and has done so much in order to descredite its action in general, that I’m not sure whether the Iraqis can still see the UN as a neutral body.
Iraqis have been very receptive to both the neocons and Chalabi’s attempts to smear the UN. As a result, I’ve heard many negative opinions concerning the UN action in the mouth of Iraqis bloggers and surfers. Of course, the UN was distributing the food ratio tickets, trying to alleviate the effects of the years long economic blockade, but she was also responsible for the UN humiliating inspections and the food ratio tickets were there because the UNSC aproved the economic sanctions in the first place.
Are there other alternatives (to the US or the UN) ? Clearly, there seem to be only one : the Iraqis themselves. May be that the right question isn’t “Who can help the Iraqis”, but whether they need/want help ?”
yes, Iraq is ultimately for the Iraqis…not for the US, UN, Iran, al-Zarqawi and his merry band of beheaders, etc…if the newly elected National Assembly asks the Coalition to leave, they should begin packing immediately.
“We have a year to get out”, calls Robin Cook along with two other Brittish members of different political parties yesterday. They are asking for a withdrawal of UK troops. I wasn’t able to find the original call, but here are the reports of the Times and for the Guardian.
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