Reidar Visser has an encouraging short report noting on the way that Pres. Obama referred to Iraq’s people(s) yesterday:
- At one point he mentioned “all of Iraq’s ethnic and religious” groups, but in another instance he referred to the “people of all parts of Iraq” and there was no reference to the specific tripartite formula of “Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds” which was prominent only weeks ago during Vice-President Joe Biden’s visit. All in all, his remarks are likely to be seen as unobjectionable by a majority of Iraqis, quire regardless of what they may think of the current Iraqi government.
Excellent.
(Hey, perhaps Obama’s people have been reading Reidar’s and my writings on this topic earlier this month? Here and here.)
But, as Reidar notes, the western MSM still
- remain stuck in their own clichés. Here, reconciliation “between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds” is the only ticket in town, even if this means having to struggle with quotation marks and sometimes even cheat.
Depressing.
I do know as a longtime journo that frequently, when you’re writing under the pressure of deadlines, you need to have handy “labels” that you slap onto various groups, especially in situations of fluid and often fast-moving conflicts. But a reporter and her editors need constantly to be re-examining the helpfulness as well as the effects of those labels. And since the Iraqi story is not particularly “fast-moving” at this time, there’s no excuse at all for the MSM journos not to be doing this.
Funny to read that the cross-party July 22 Movement is putting its mind to good old fashioned gerrymanders for the parliamentary elections. Really getting into the swing of things!
One can imagine how frustated the current Iranian regime must be with the Iraq constitution. Every time Hakim or Maliki goes to Tehran they must be greeted with “were you out of your minds, agreeing to this?” Consensual democracy based on PR voting? – not in the Guards lexicon.
Of course, under the current Iraqi constitution, the party with the plurality of the votes gets to nominate the PM and cabinet. If the Shia parties contested separately they would be in danger of handing that right to the Kurds. So its no surprise the UIA is reforming, and will be no surprise if Moqtada crawls his party back into the fold after its dismal showing in the provincial elections.
All in all, his remarks are likely to be seen as unobjectionable by a majority of Iraqis, quire regardless of what they may think of the current Iraqi government.
Yeah but as Moms Mabley said, “It ain’t the lights, it’s the cars gonna kill ya.” Same with Obama. It ain’t what he says, it’s what he does gonna kill ya, whether you’re an Iraqi, Afghan, Pakistani, Palestinian… or American. He’s gunnin’ for ya. Makin’ nice with the talk all the while.