Succeeding in Iraq By Kenneth E. Lamb

Free Republic Network ^ | 5-25-04 | By Kenneth E. Lamb

[Bob J]

To: Congressman Jeff Miller Member, House Armed Services Committee Key thought: As Violence Deepens, So Does Pessimism By Daniel Williams Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, May 18, 2004; Page A01 BAGHDAD, May 17 -- With stunning brazenness, pinpoint timing and devastating force, the suicide car bomber who killed the head of Iraq's Governing Council on Monday gave shape to a feeling among Iraqi and U.S. officials and common citizens that the country is almost unmanageable.

Dear Congressman Miller:

By now, I hope those with power in Congress are disabused of any fantasy that the Iraqis are “just like us,” but for the lunacy of Saddam & Co.

Maybe what is beginning to dawn on those I just referred to is this thought: The reason dictators run Arab countries is because that is what they need to be run at all.

I remember during our last futile attempt to save a country from itself that the lack of any word in the Vietnamese language for “democracy” came as such a shock to Americans. Tell me, can anyone recite any history whatsoever of democracy in any Arab country?

I wrote a year ago to you that our failure in Iraq will come because we are trying to move a country into a form of government without any evolution – dictatorship one day; democracy the next.

I also wrote reminding that our vaunted democracy hardly occurred overnight: It is a long stretch of centuries between the Magna Carta and modern American freedom. We didn’t do it overnight either. Why should anyone else?

One story a former Navy first-class aviation electronics technician told me involved an announcement from the pilot readying to land. When telling the crew to change their watches to local time, he said, “Ok, set your watches back 500 years – we’re landing in Saudi Arabia.”

Unfortunately, that really isn’t off the mark. While the Saudis and other Arab countries enjoy modern technology, they disdain modern western culture. We can’t send enough troops into Iraq – or any other Arab country – to change that fact of life.

I could review the endless string of disastrous decisions the admin made in handling Iraq. What good will it do? The only thing I can get out of it is reinforcing the idea that while they are well known, they don’t know much very well.

The time is quickly coming when the wheels are going to fall off the wagon completely. June 30 is only weeks away. With that reality staring us in the face, let’s come up with gameplan that works.

In the British press, plans surfaced for the US and the UK to get out of Iraq fast after June 30. Sec. Powell is already softening up US opinion by stating that if asked, the US will depart the country. Nixon referred to the same “cut-and-run” strategy in Vietnam as “Peace with Honor.” The more cynical of us will refer to it this time as “Saving Bush’s reelection.”

I think we both know the reason Kerry can’t capitalize on Bush’s disaster in Iraq. Nobody believes Kerry will do better than Bush, so why change? In fact, with Jerry Springer now “honored” as an at-large Ohio delegate to the Boston Democratic convention, and pictures of Kerry’s daughter at Cannes in a see-through dress revealing every inch of her nakedness, the bankruptcy of Kerry and the Democrats is painfully obvious to everyone except the folks talking to themselves at Air America Radio.

So let’s think strategically about Iraq and not waste time on Kerry.

Since the Arabs want to live in the past, let’s take them there. Let’s roll the clock back to the pre-Winston Churchill-imposed creation of Iraq following World War I.

Before then, the Ottoman Turks ruled over the area for hundreds of years. They did so successfully by incorporating two concepts today’s “nation-builders” reject as blasphemy: 1) The Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Shiites have nothing in common except hate for each other. The current “uprising” alliance is a marriage birthed in Hell for convenience against America; and 2) Arabs are the ultimate “welfare class.” Think about it: What do Arab leaders do with their oil money? They give it away to their subjects in the form of subsidized everything: food, utilities, stipends, fuel, you name it.

To take a little of Powell’s philosophy, when we broke Iraq by invading it, we bought a 25-million member welfare state. (Quick, name one significant patent coming out of Arabia. How about one significant university, or corporation – other than the American-managed Aramco. Without oil, Arabia contributes painfully little to the world except destruction and death.)

So back to the success of the Ottomans, since a couple hundred years of stability in that area will be welcome.

Re-divide Iraq into its original constituent parts. (I can hear the screaming of the nation-builder religionists already! Tough – the turmoil for neartly a century there proves their idea isn’t working.) Set up the Kurds in the north, the Sunnis in the middle, and the Shiites in the south.

The modern-day Turks will go ballistic about the Kurds, but so what? Let them bleed to death by sending their troops into Iraq. Let’s see how many suicide-bombs devastating Ankara will give them pause. Turkey’s outrage will be hot air, with no substance.

The neo-cons will go ballistic about a mirror of ayatollah-run Iran in the south. So what? The Shiites have the votes in a democracy to elect the ayatollahs and Islamists no matter what, a la Pakistan’s recent elections. It would be nice if the neo-cons would get a grip on reality – Islamic rule in southern Iraq is inevitable. As I said, they’ve got the votes.

And the Sunnis? Well, they can slather themselves in the memories of Baghdad ’s long-gone world stature. Actually, they are the best educated of the region – that’s why they keep coming out on top of the pile in Iraq. They are the group we can best profit with since Sunnis – other than Wahhabis – are practical people.

What I’ve proposed is the only formula that ever worked in that region. It has a track record of success over hundreds of years. The “nation-builders” of Britain and the US both failed to succeed because they refused to accept the wisdom of the Ottomans, who did succeed.

As my pastor says, “If you want to be successful, do what the successful people do.”

I hope this plants a seed and you circulate this as a trial balloon. Maybe some Op-ed columnist at the New York Times or the Washington Post will steal the idea as his or her own. Then, it will be exalted because some celebrity writer floated it instead on an unknown back in the proveniences.

That’s OK. I stole it from the Ottomans.

Comments should be sent to kel@gulf1.com