The US needs to learn to talk, listen, and engage more and condemn less.
Options for the US administration are so limited that one leading analyst has called them the “almost good, the bad and the ugly.”
Americans say they invaded Iraq with the intention of making that state a model for the Middle East, promising that success in Iraq would be followed by efforts to transform the political systems of Iraq’s neighbors.
But their actions belie their claim. It can be judged from their actions that the U.S. is carrying out a plan to destroy Iraq and colonise its people and national resources.
Firstly, they invaded Iraq without the authorization of United Nations. The pretext they used for invasion proved to be false.
Secondly, The administartion’s overreaching de-Baathification policy turned to be counter-productive and terrible blunder.In their burning zeal to purge Sadam loyalists. They sacked thousands of low-level Sunni employees and replaced them with Shiites.This action alienated the Sunnis. It can be easily seen that the U.S. introduced and strengthened encouraged sectarianism and ethnic nationalism.
Thirdly, The senseless disbanding of the Iraqi army further angered the Sunnis. The armed, unemployed and alienated Sunnis joined the insurgency in large numbers. The US-recruited Iraqi army is drawn from Kurdish nationalists and Shiite fundamentalists who are being employed to suppress the largely Sunni-based resistance movement alongside American forces.
The Independent newspaper acknowledged that “the Iraqi government does not really control its own armed forces, which often take their orders from Kurdish, Sunni or Shia communal leaders.
Fourthly, the US-sponsored constitution allows for the de facto partition into a Kurdish north and a Shiite south. Not only does this exclude Sunnis from any share in the oil-rich areas, it means that the various parties have a vested interest in fortifying their control by enforcing communal divisions.
These developments have angered the traditional Sunni Muslim powerbrokers of Cairo and Riyadh . They see their influence waning. They blame US for all these upheavels.
The Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, warned the US President about the the many unforeseen ramifications of US-Led invasion of Iraq in February , 2003. Had Bush heeded his advice Iraq would not now be on the brink of full-blown civil war and disintegration.
The Saudis have made clear that they will not accept a situation in which Iraq falls into the hands of the Iranians. Moreover, domestic pressure to intervene is intense. Because Major Saudi tribal confederations, which have close historic and communal ties with their counterparts in Iraq, are demanding action.
Now The US needs to learn to talk, listen, and engage more and condemn less. Bush’s rhetoric about promoting democracy is less convincing than pictures of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. He should press for a strategy that pays more attention to attracting hearts and minds.
