It is hard to point out substantial differences in UN policy towards the Kurds versus the Shiites. Yet the results, and the attitudes, are night-and-day different
UN policy? Is this a typo? What has happenmed in the North is due to US policy.
The Shiites resent us bitterly; the Kurds are grateful
Nah. The Kurds have had a ten year head start during which they were protected from Saddam, weren't subject to a lot of terrorist attacks, and got a lot of coaching on governmental technique and civil rights from US State Department sponsored workers.
Now Shiites in the very South of Iraq are getting the same kind of coaching and they seem to be doing quite well with it and don't seem resentful at all. I do do believe the Shiites don't trust the US a whole lot because of '91, etc but I think "bitter resentment" is very much overstepping the truth.
What can you say, after you are finished saying, well, the Kurds are not Arabs and aren't susceptible to rule by mullahs or running on wounded pride or other pan-Arab craziness? How else do you explain it?
The Shiite folk in Iraq on average don't go to mosque any more often than US Catholics. They listen to senior clerics because for decades they were just about the only nearly decent leadership they had. But they aren't the only game in the country. Saddam and his predecessors never ran a modern state and so tribal leadership had real functions because courts were NFG. It's very significant that a couple of weeks ago a meeting of just about every tribal leader in South Iraq urged al-Sadr to turn himself over to the government because, they said, "No one in Iraq should be above the law." They apparently don't want to continue to run the shame game honour culture thing if there are decent courts operating. And they don't want the mullahs to have a free pass.
And neither does the population generally. Polls make it very clear Iraqis think government should have nothing to do with religion and it's up to religious leaders to convince people how to behave in that realm. Where they've had recent local elections the religious parties don't get a big part of the vote.
As for pan-Arab craziness, it appears that if there is one thing nearly every Arab in Iraq is agreed upon, it is that their fellow Arabs are a shameful lot who never lifted a finger to help them out of Saddam's charnel house.
Recently some of the Kurdish leaders met with Sistanni and since then there has been a lot less criticism of the interim constitutional arrangements.
There's a hell of a lot of horse trading going on and Iraqis are doing a good bit of it through the media, including US media. That WSJ article is good but it's not the only picture.
I think the message might even be getting through to the Sunnis that they're not the top dogs anymore and if they want to participate in the new country and not be consigned to an oil-less dogpatch, then they have to sign on to a new arrangement.
There is one thing Saddam did for Shiites and Sunnis, but to a much smaller degree the Kurds, and that's give them a national Iraqi identity. He jammed them together and ran three wars on the basis of it. They they have a long history and a capital city of five million which is not a joke - it's a sophisticated place. They've real universities and professional people and they've got the rivers and the dubious gift of a lot of oil.
It's becoming clear even to the dullest of them that with the population divided 3/5, 1/5, 1/5 demographically and geographically the only sensible arrangement right now is a confederaton with a lot of regional autonomy and secular government (but they're not going to call it secular).
It's no small wonder that all the islamofascist freaks and Baathist dregs are hacking at the place. It's quite possible Iraq can be a successful modern country.
The greatest problems to overcome are habits the centuries of brutal corruption have created, what to do about the oil revenues, and the recently acquired socialist policies that promote poverty and corruption. These aren't small things but they aren't impossible to overcome. |
