The truth about al-Sadr

A fine article by Naomi Klein, increasingly the leading voice of the progressive world. How she got to be it is simple: she tells the truth as she sees it.

It's easy to forget that the American offensive against al-Sadr began because he took to the streets when Bremer closed down his newspaper. Remember, we're bringing democracy to these people, one item of which is freedom of the press.

Al-Sadr's rise to fame has been based on two pillars: resistance to the occupation, which is unpopular despite what Mr Allawi was told to say, and calls for free and fair elections. Of course, he wants the latter because he hopes the Shia majority will vote in a theocracy; the very reason the Americans fear fair elections and will help rig a victory for Allawi next year.

Al-Sadr has played the game well. He understands Iraqis far better than the Americans, who continue to believe that simply imposing a strongman will resolve all of Iraq's problems.

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More interesting work on Iraq, discussing the Survey Group's report.

The right is going to spin the Survey Group's discussion of the decay of sanctions into the real reason for invading Iraq. But the truth of it is, they are not telling us anything we don't know. Of course Saddam wanted bios and chems. They were his only hope of preventing a determined enemy from invading his country and destroying his power. Hello? If nothing else, the guy was a realist, not the desperate fantasist he is so often painted.

It's interesting that Saddam claims to have been equivocal on WMDs because he wanted to deter Iran. He simply didn't believe the Americans would attack him. Why would he? He knew he had nothing to do with 9/11 and he knew he could pose and did pose no threat to the USA.

The truth of it is that he had a regional bias and never intended harm to the USA. Frankly, if the Yanks never bothered him, he would never bother them. This isn't something the Bushistas are going to admit but it is quite plain. Where Saddam went wrong was in not realising that there was no way the Yanks were ever going to let him be. He was sitting on too much black honey for that. He had to deal with them because of that.

On the subject of WMDs, we should never let the truth be submerged in rightist spin: Iraq had no WMDs but North Korea has. It might have as many as eight nukes. The concern we have pretended over WMDs is shown to be hollow by our attitude to North Korea, which could be characterised as an earnest desire to see it collapse in on itself before it can do any harm.

A few years ago North Korea was inching towards reunification and its security concerns were being dealt with sympathetically.

Now it is a frightened country with terrible weapons, facing a hostile power that prides itself on "not wavering", which sounds a great deal to the onlooker like "not being flexible".

But nations must be flexible. There must be give and take. You cannot say "this is how it will be" and believe that you can force the world to your will. America is learning the hard way in Iraq that that is not the way it is regardless how much power you can project.

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It's a lesson that is lost on Mr Kerry though. He seems to believe that the best answer to America's security problems is not "work to build a world that works for everyone in it and not just the USA, and in the process don't stir up resentment against the USA" but "hire more troops".

But no amount of troops could stop Mohammed Atta. And the price of using power to resolve problems of legitimacy, as we see in Iraq, is very high (although, as Mr Cheney notes, it's not Americans that mostly pay it).

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Yet more good stuff in the Guardian.

Like many people, when Bush dismissed the intelligence report that suggested Iraq might dissolve into civil war as "just guessing", I wondered (well, first of all whether he was fucking crazy, to dismiss his own intelligence services, who, if we remember, he relied on to make his case to bomb the shit out of Iraq in the first place) where he was getting his better intelligence from.

Well, of course we all know and, it's sad to report, about half of America thinks it's a good thing. It doesn't matter what you see on TV, read in the papers. The evidence can be dismissed. God tells Bush that he's winning, so he's winning and God bless America.

posted by Dr Zen @ 9:40 am