[Re-posted from 2006]
Fitzgerald: Before we can deal with Iran...
As the situation in Iran grows more serious by the minute, American troops in Iraq now stand in the way of the only kind of advantage that can now be pulled from the tarbaby of Iraq. That advantage is the weakening of the global jihad through the exploitation of the sectarian (Sunni-Shi'a) and ethnic (Arab-Kurd) divisions that have existed since virtually the beginning of Islam, but have been exacerbated recently by the Sunni Arab rule of modern Iraq, and particularly the Sunni Arab murderous rule of Saddam Hussein.
Getting out of Iraq now is the very best thing the Administration can do in order to ensure political support for dealing with Iran. It is also the best thing to do so that attention and resources can be turned to another important matter, the islamization of Western Europe through Da'wa and demographic conquest. It is madness for the American troops to remain in Iraq. There they are now hostage to possible Iranian retaliation for any attack on Iran's nuclear project. That retaliation could come from Iran itself, which shares a long and porous border with Iraq, or it could come from Iranian agents already in Iraq working with local Shi'a such as Moqtada al-Sadr -– who is so obviously malevolent, with his ansar al-mahdi or Mahdi's Army. Or alternatively, the retaliation could come from other Shi'a groups. The Shi’a in general have been perfectly content to watch the Americans inflict casualties on the Sunnis and suffer casualties in return, all the while attempting to extract the last bit of aid, training, and equipment that the long-suffering American military can be persuaded to offer. Those American generals are apparently unwilling or unable to push Bush to drop his messianic notions of Iraq the Model, Iraq the Light Unto the Muslim Nations. They have been relegated by Bush to letting him know only when "the Iraqis are ready for us to leave,” which is to say, when "the Iraqis can stand up so we can stand down." Oh my god.
Since when do foreigners tell us when they are "ready" to have us leave? We could be fighting the Sunnis on behalf of the Shi'a until the cows come home.
I have news for Bush, the news the generals apparently cannot bring themselves quite yet to deliver. There never will be a moment when a real army of "Iraq" which will contain, fighting side by side and loyal to each other, Sunni and Shi'a Arabs and Kurds. It just cannot be. Oh, here and there a special unit might exist, but even that unit's supposed "unity" and "loyalty to the idea of Iraq" could dissolve at the first real testing. But all this is brushed aside by the messianic impulse of Bush, and by his naivete about the virtues of "democracy" and even the ease with which this "democracy" can be transplanted in the stoniest and most unlikely soil. That stony soil for democracy’s growth is the soil of Islam, which teaches that legitimacy comes from Allah and the Shari'a, not from mere mortals casting their ballots.
Bush’s naivete is also on display in his laziness about the specific history of Iraq, and of Sunni-Shi'a hostility. It is not merely a product of the last few years or few decades. It goes back more than 1300 years, to the time of the four rightly-guided caliphs. Can no one -- no one? -- talk to Bush and explain this to him, and to Rice, and to the rest of them? Can they not be persuaded to put down their copies of John Esposito’s books even for a moment? Can't they understand the importance of the Sunni-Shi’a split? And can't they figure out why this split is not to be deplored, but rather to be exploited by Infidels?
The problem of Iran cannot be dealt with as long as the Americans are tied down -- tied down by their own inability to think through the whole menace of Islamic jihad, and to put aside memories of this or that charming and plausible Iraqi exile, or some touching individual they have run across in Iraq. Put that kind of thing out of your head. Think only about the welfare of Infidels. There are innocents in the Muslim world, but we are not in a position now to help them without further imperiling ourselves. Western civilization is menaced in a peculiarly complicated way, a way that involves the weakness of mind of Western man himself, who has forgotten what his own history and his own values are, or is willing, or many are wiling, to toss that legacy, those values, aside.
It has to happen soon. The misallocation of resources -- men, money materiel, attention -- is just too great.
Bush may not be up to it. He is obstinate, and apparently unable to recognize that all of his assumptions about Iraq were based on ignorance of Islam and ignorance of Iraq.
But let's hope.
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