April 13, 2007

REVEALING HONESTY:

Fouad Ajami: Middle East scholar or Shiite partisan? (Henry Bowles, 04/13/2007, Foreign Policy)

Fouad Ajami, unenthused as he must be at the prospect of conceding that he erred in fervently supporting the Iraq War, is a tad more invested in the surge than is your average academic. So, naturally, at a time when even the hint of optimism on Iraq is duly punished in the media, Ajami departed Washington for Baghdad to assess the situation for himself. His conclusions, published at great length in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, did nothing to lay to rest the long-standing criticism that Ajami reeks of Shiite nationalism.

It's kind of refreshing to see someone express contempt of the Shi'a majority in Iraq so openly. The Realists liked it so much better when Saddam had his foot on their throats.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 13, 2007 12:02 PM
Comments

What an astonishing piece of drivel from Bowles. It fairly reeks of the sort of dual loyalty charges commonly made in the past against Jews and Catholics.

Why should Ajami accept the common wisdom that Iraq was a failure for us? B/c the Shia are in charge? Ridiculous. Who did the realist twits think was going to be left in charge after we toppled the Baathists if not the majority? And now they want our troops to prop up the Baathist deadenders by fighting the Shia. Astonishing.

Posted by: Jim in Chicago at April 13, 2007 12:52 PM

"Why should Ajami accept the common wisdom that Iraq was a failure for us? B/c the Shia are in charge?"

No, but because the Bush Administration's goal was a non-sectarian democracy and that is not what is happening nor likely to occur in the future. Thus it could legitmately be called a failure despite relignment of power to the majority Shia.

With the present policy of the US there is a risk of our inadvertently sliding into policy of permanently aiding in the oppression the Sunni minority in Iraq. That does not bode well for our larger goal of supposedly reforming Islam into whatever we were going to reform it into (which I never thought likely anyway)

Posted by: h-man at April 14, 2007 4:07 AM

Democracies always oppress antidemocrats. It's a good thing.

Posted by: oj at April 14, 2007 6:22 AM

Can a Sunni(who is otherwise not "anti-democratic") look to the present government and expect equal treatment under the law? If the answer is no then the "oppression" is not justified and our policy is a failure. (it will degrade what standing we hope to have in the rest of Arabia and hinder the GWOT)

I think that is the case. On a purely pactical level the Shia majority is not capable of maintaining militarily their dominance over the Sunni without permanent US presence. A US policy of encouraging humane efforts at partitioning Iraq might help.

Posted by: h-man at April 14, 2007 8:42 AM

Except that the answer is, yes.

Posted by: oj at April 14, 2007 11:11 AM

Looks like Iraq hasn't turned into Switzerland fast enough for some people...

Posted by: Mikey [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 14, 2007 12:28 PM
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