Posted on 02/05/2005 5:30:16 PM PST by saquin
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Through 22 months of occupation and war here, the word "America" was usually the first word to pass through the lips of an Iraqi with a gripe.
Why can't the Americans produce enough electricity? Why can't the Americans guarantee security? Why can't the Americans find my stolen car?
Last week, as the euphoria of nationwide elections washed over this country, a remarkable thing happened: Iraqis, by and large, stopped talking about the Americans.
With the ballots still being counted here, the Iraqi candidates retired to the back rooms to cut political deals, leaving the Americans, for the first time, standing outside. In Baghdad's tea shops and on its street corners, the talk turned to which of those candidates might form the new government, to their schemes and stratagems, and to Iraqi problems and Iraqi solutions.
And for the United States, the assessments turned unfamiliarly measured.
"We have no electricity here, no water and there's no gasoline in the pumps," said Salim Mohammed Ali, a tire repairman who voted in last Sunday's election. "Who do I blame? The Iraqi government, of course. They can't do anything."
Asked about the American military presence here, Mr. Ali chose his words carefully.
"I think the Americans should stay here until our security forces are able to do the jobs themselves," Mr. Ali said, echoing virtually every senior American officer in Iraq. "We Iraqis have our own government now, and we can invite the Americans to stay."
The Iraqi focus on its own democracy, and the new view of the United States, surfaced in dozens of interviews with Iraqis since last Sunday's election. It is unclear, of course, how widespread the trend is; whole communities, like the Sunni Arabs, remain almost implacably opposed to the presence of American forces. But by many accounts, the elections last week altered Iraqis' relationship with the United States more than any single event since the invasion.
Since April 9, 2003, when Saddam Hussein's rule crumbled, Iraqis have viewed themselves more or less as American subjects. American officials ran their government, American soldiers fought their war, American money paid to rebuild Iraq.
Indeed, the American project to implant democracy in Iraq often seemed to be in danger of falling victim to the country's manifest political passivity, born of a quarter-century of torture centers, mass graves, free food and pennies-a-gallon gasoline. The more the Americans tried to nudge the Iraqis towards self-government, the more the Iraqis expected the Americans to do.
As the insurgents wreaked more and more havoc, and sabotaged more and more of the country's power supply, the Iraqis, not surprisingly, blamed the people in charge. Day by day, many Iraqis' gratitude for the toppling of Saddam Hussein seemed to harden into bitterness and contempt.
After June 28, when American suzerainty here formally ended, not many Iraqis bought the notion that the interim government of Ayad Allawi was anything other than a caretaker regime, hand-picked by the Americans and the United Nations.
All that seemed to change last Sunday, when millions of Iraqis streamed to the polls. Few if any Iraqis had ever voted in anything approaching a free election, yet most seemed to know exactly what the exercise was about: selecting their own representatives to lead their own country.
"Our dilemma is solved," said Rashid Majid, 80, who wore his best jacket to the polls. "We will follow our new leaders, because we have chosen them."
Some Iraqis saw in the election their own liberation, one that many did not feel on April 9, 2003. Mr. Hussein's regime was not toppled by Iraqis but by the American military, a fact that has lingered in Iraqi minds.
Yet after casting ballots in a free election, conducted by more than 100,000 Iraqi poll workers, many Iraqis said they finally felt free - not only from the terrors of the old regime, but also from acute feelings of humiliation about the American occupation.
"The election was a victory of our own making," said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the national security adviser. "The Iraqi people voted with their own blood."
The newfound self-respect that Mr. Rubaie believes the election conferred on ordinary Iraqis seems to have had an immediate impact on their view of the United States. Suddenly empowered with the vote, Iraqis no longer seem to view America as all-powerful, or themselves as unable to affect events. A result has been a suddenly more accepting view of the United States.
The realism among Iraqis was evident on election day itself. Amid the euphoria of voting, America, which had almost always been the first topic of conversation, was suddenly evanescent, unmentioned in a score of interviews unless a reporter raised it first. And when Iraqis did talk of America, it was with a reasonableness and patience that had seemed missing, a willingness to balance good with bad, to give credit where it is due.
This transition seemed all the more striking for the fact that Apache helicopters roared over the polling centers every few minutes with American troops manning checkpoints only a few blocks away.
Hachim Shahir, an 83-year-old bricklayer standing in line for hours to vote, was asked how it had been possible for somebody like him to arrive at such a late stage in life without ever having voted, and now finally to have cast a ballot. He thought for a long while, then answered: "America - it was America that did it."
And how did he feel about that?
"America will be good if it completes what it came here to do, to bring us democracy, and then it goes home," Mr. Shahir said. "The main thing now is that they keep their promises, and leave. Personally, I believe they will do it."
The new mood appears to have continued since election day. The calls by candidates for a timetable for American military withdrawal have died away. Even a group of Sunni politicians decided last week that they would take part in the drafting of Iraq's new constitution without insisting on a timetable.
Getting Iraqis to take charge of their own affairs, whether by fighting insurgents or taking over government ministries, has been the goal of American leaders here since the fall of Saddam Hussein. After 22 months of trying to persuade the Iraqis to stand on their own, while doing everything for them, the Americans may be finding that Iraqis, now fully sovereign, don't want them to go home so soon after all.
I got the following just today from a friend, a Marine sergeant serving in the Najaf area:
The elections were a big day for us too as we were prepared for anything, but fortunately everything here was quiet and we had a huge voter turn out. The next day we while we were on patrol we had many of the Iraqi people come up to us and say thank you for giving them this opportunity. For many of the Iraqi people this is a big step toward rebuilding their country and having a free democratic government.
I wish the Iraqi people could read about America's fight for freedom and what our fore-fathers suffered in order for "We the people" to rule our country and a fight we are still carrying on today. Evil people lurk in the wings within America and we must constantly be on guard. So it will also be true in Iraq.
You are absolutely correct. The NYT is the enemy within. They will do ANYTHING to make it appear that W and the Repubs are losing, no matter what the truth is. How else can they hope to have a chance to put the dems back in power?
Good Post, Thanks
Quite true. The MSM is out to destroy this great Republic. The battle against the MSM will be in ways tougher than battling the terrorists. The MSM is the enemy within and they will NOT stop trying to bring down this Republic and establish a totalitarian state run by the elites of the left.
It sounds like the Iraqi people, held in forced infancy by the despot Hussein, has finally grown up politically. If we don't screw up the next 12-18 months, they will make great allies someday.
fascists? I do believe that making that charge about Freepers only shows you have no understanding of fascism. I suggest you study the subject. Most of the rants by Freepers I have read is about protecting individual rights, minimizing government in our lives and boosting of the benefits of Liberty. I doubt fascists would desire any of that.
Excellent! This is exactly what we wanted to happen. Now we help them get their security forces and government online and move the troops out of the cities. Hopefully things will continue to remain stable, and then we can start reducing the number of troops down to whatever garrison it is we're planning to leave on the Iranian border.
This isn't really true. But we haven't done it in over a century. We flat-out colonized the Kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands, and we fought a rather nasty (and almost forgotten) colonial war in the Philippines after we took them from Spain.
This is news to me. I guess I'm not as informed on U.S. history as I thought. I still, however, think that we have been the most benevolent of any "super power" in history. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Thanks for your clarification,
Bob
“Iraqi's are now realizing it is not the Americans that are either at fault nor the saviour......it is themselves that have to fix the problems…”
I agree with you. I felt that the article portrayed the Iraqi people as looking to provide their own solution to their problems. I also feel the writer did a good job of showing how some of the Iraqi who might have been against the U.S. are starting to see the good we are doing and appreciate the sacrifice we made.
It’s unfortunate that the NY Times has spent so much capital painting a picture of Iraqi doom and gloom. If thing continue to improve, they will probably forget all together that they were the head cheerlead against the U.S. victory in Iraq.
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
I suspect the difference is more due to a change in the attitude of the NYT itself than in a change in the attitude of Iraqis.
"Getting Iraqis to take charge of their own affairs"
"After 22 months of trying to persuade the Iraqis to stand on their own"
OK I'm going to explain this one more time. IT WAS ALL ABOUT
1991!!!!!
The Iraqi's did not trust us to stay there until they could take care of themselves. Fostered by the screams from the likes of the KKK's, that's Kennedy, Kerry, Kucinich, they thought we would cut & run if they rose up to help us. Than 100's of thousands would be slaughtered again, just like 1991! This is from the mouths of my friends family that lives in Mosul. It was said in May 2003.
They never looked at America as anything but their liberator's. UNTIL the LSM, KKK's & the peace monkeys started screaming we needed to leave.
The Lame Stream Media & the MINORITY party's incessant questioning of the President & insisting that he admit policy mistakes was offensive to me.
The only mistake the Bush Administration made in this war was not SILENCING the aforementioned morons.
we are at war with the the MSM. This country lost Vietnam because the left ended up winning the battle of images and impressions. We cannot let that happen again in Iraq.
JUST EXACTLY RIGHT! Thank you for the outrage. I have e-mailed Fox News everytime I felt they crossed the line. I rarely watch anything else however, I flipped to MSNBC to hear crybaby Chrissy Mathews, 5 seconds & I changed the channel & fired off an outraged e-mail.
If we don't screw up the next 12-18 months, they will make great allies someday.
CORRECT! Now fire off letters to the moronic mouths of the Congress & tell them to "SHUT THE H**L UP"
The President & his administration know EXACTLY what they are doing. The only problem child is now gone. Everything will be fine if Congress & the LSM will take the back seat where they belong & shut up!
Hachim Shahir, an 83-year-old bricklayer standing in line for hours to vote, was asked how it had been possible for somebody like him to arrive at such a late stage in life without ever having voted, and now finally to have cast a ballot. He thought for a long while, then answered: "America - it was America that did it." And how did he feel about that? "America will be good if it completes what it came here to do, to bring us democracy, and then it goes home," Mr. Shahir said. "The main thing now is that they keep their promises, and leave. Personally, I believe they will do it."
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