[Mb-civic] RATTLING THE CAGE: Arabs killing Arabs - Larry Derfner, THE JERUSALEM POST

[George R. Milman]

Finally, the war in Iraq has come into focus. After nearly three years of
what seemed like swirling warfare, in which you couldn't figure out who was
the ally and who the enemy, and you didn't know where this was all supposed
to be heading, things have now fallen into place. 

Last week's destruction of a major Shi'ite shrine and the maddened
Sunni-Shi'ite bloodshed that followed make it clear what the war in Iraq has
turned into: a civil war between Arab Muslims, Shi'ites vs Sunnis. 

Furthermore, this is a civil war that appears out of control, certainly
beyond the control of the hopelessly undermanned American and British armies
over there. 

I can almost hear people cheering: "Hooray! The Arabs are slaughtering each
other again! We've won! Bring the troops home!" 

Many of the people I imagine cheering loudest are those who pushed hardest
for the war in the first place, including a lot of right-wing and even
not-so-right-wing Israelis and Diaspora Jews, along with evangelical
Christians who love Israel and hate Muslims. 

But they have lots of company; "Islamophobia" runs throughout the Western
world. 

ONE PERSON I don't imagine to be cheering with this crowd is President Bush.
For all his considerable faults, I don't think he's motivated by contempt
for Arabs or Muslims at all. Instead, I think he mistakenly went to war for
what he saw as America's security, and talked himself into believing it
would end in peace, freedom and democracy for Iraqis because, as silly as
this sounded, it was the only "exit strategy" anyone could come up with for
the war. 

But now, for the first time, a real exit strategy has presented itself. If,
until now, it seemed too dangerous for the US to pull its troops out of Iraq
because this would embolden the forces out to destroy Western civilization,
this danger seems to have lifted: The anti-Western forces fighting in Iraq
have become totally preoccupied with destroying each other. 

The now-decisive Sunni-Shi'ite divide even puts the West's two most feared
enemies, Iran (Shi'ite) and al-Qaida (Sunni), on opposite, warring sides. It
likewise splits all other anti-Western belligerents in Iraq such as the
Sunni insurgents and the Shi'ite army of Moqtada al-Sadr. 

THE INFLUENTIAL hawk Daniel Pipes, in his column in The Jerusalem Post and
New York Sun this week, argued that America and its supporters needn't feel
any guilt about the turn the war has taken. 

"Fixing Iraq is neither the coalition's responsibility nor its burden," he
wrote. "Americans, Britons and others cannot be tasked with resolving
Sunni-Shi'ite difficulties." And while he allowed that the unfolding civil
war was a "humanitarian tragedy," Pipes listed several strategic benefits it
offered the West, including safety: "[W]hen Sunni terrorists target Shi'ites
and vice-versa, non-Muslims are less likely to be hurt." 

This is the "realpolitik" view of the war in Iraq, and I'm afraid it's going
to spread like a fever. People are going to start saying, "Enough with this
democracy, it's safe to get out of there now, so what are we waiting for?" 

And I'm afraid Bush, with his approval rating on the floor, with no clue of
how to salvage the situation, and with the prospect of being branded by
history as a reckless, incompetent failure, will be mighty tempted to grasp
at this solution and speed up the withdrawal of troops. He might even see
this newly arrived exit strategy as a godsend. As for the untold millions of
innocent Sunnis and Shi'ites in Iraq and elsewhere who might get caught up
in a religious war, I'm sure they would be in Bush's prayers. 

AND ALL the while, many of Bush's supporters, gentiles and Jews, would be
taking satisfaction from all this Arab misery and the promise of much more
to come. It could turn into another Iran-Iraq war, which killed hundreds of
thousands of people in the 1980s, and which was welcomed by many right-wing
and not-so-right-wing Jews as a distraction for Arab enmity that otherwise
might be aimed at Israel. They also welcomed that war just for the simple
pleasure of knowing that somewhere Arabs were killing each other en masse. 

The civil war now going on in Iraq, though, is a very different moral issue.
If some people wanted to cheer on the Iran-Iraq war, that was their
affliction, but the point is that the Iraqis and Iranians started that war
themselves; nobody else had a responsibility to stop it. 

The civil war going on now in Iraq, however, is America's and Britain's
responsibility to stop. America and Britain, backed enthusiastically by
Israel, much of Diaspora Jewry and evangelical Christianity, decided to
invade Iraq without any invitation. Regardless of George W. Bush's and Tony
Blair's intentions, they initiated a war whose direct consequence was the
current, open-ended murderousness between the Shi'ites and Sunnis. 

So America and Britain can't wash their hands of this, not if they want to
go on being decent countries. They have to send however many troops and
spend however much money it takes to contain the violence. I would also say
that Israel and anybody who endorsed the war have a responsibility to give
America and Britain at least moral support for this cause. 

As for those Jews and gentiles who cheered on the invasion and who will now
be rooting for civil war, they're exempt from responsibility because they
had no morality to begin with. America and Britain launched a war in the
name of democracy and freedom for the Iraqi people. They can't abandon it
now in the name of realpolitik, with an exit strategy that improves as the
Iraqi civil war intensifies. 

It would be too evil to contemplate.

 

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