Iraq civil unrest hits close to home for the blogger at Iraq the Model

By Aussiegirl

Some very illuminating and sobering inside information from Iraq, from the fellow who writes the usually optimistic and forward looking "Iraq the Model" blog. A fascinating and touching conversation with his wise and knowledgeable father about the possible future facing their beloved homeland. We cannot deal with this situation unless we face reality -- the road to stability and democracy in Iraq is going to depend on the will of the Iraqi people in the long run -- and nothing else.

OpinionJournal - Federation

We woke up this morning to the sounds of many explosions and since we are familiar with those sounds we recognized that these were no doubt mortar shelling but not like the usual which is one or two rounds fired by some terrorists in a hit and run manner; this time fire was exchanged between two or more groups and lasted for more than an hour.

Mortars are blind and whoever uses this kind of dumb weapon that belongs to World War I is blind too. Maybe they make good weapons in open battlefields but using mortars inside crowded cities reflects savage insanity that forces you to pick a mortar-lottery ticket and hope not to be the unfortunate winner.

[...]I always talk to my father when things get complicated; this man lived through the times of the monarchy, the first republic, the pan-Arab nationalists and the Ba'ath and he's from the generation that ruled Iraq for decades and many of our current politicians belong to this generation. This makes men like my father closer to understanding the way his generation thinks as well as its internal conflicts, so I threw at him the urging questions and confused thoughts I had in my head:
Me: How is this mess going to resolve dad?

Dad: it is not.

Me: Are you positive? Why?

Dad: People find solutions only if they wanted to and I think many of the political players do not want a solution.

Me: Is there a chance the situation will further escalate?

Dad: Most likely yes, we are a state still run by sentiments rather than reason which means it's a brittle state and any sentimental overreaction can turn the tide it in either direction.

Me: what kinds of challenges can make things worse?

Dad: Virtually anything . . . assassinating a leader, a fatwa, attack on a shrine like last time; we do not possess the institutions that can abolish the effects of severe sentimental reactions.

Me: Is there going to be no role for politics?

Dad: What politics are you talking about?! We are dealing with deeply-rooted beliefs . . . Yes, in politics everything is possible but with religion you find yourself before very few options to choose from and our people have mostly voted for the religious.

Me: And what's America's role here? Will they stand by and watch while things go against what the way they desire?

Dad: Why do you always put America in the face of the canon? America is a super power but it's not superman. These are our problems now and America has nothing to do with it. We have to fix our mess or no one will.

COMMENTS:

At 7:46 PM, Morris said...

His dad is a very, very wise man. I'm not at all optomistic that Iraq will ever survive as a democracy. As their constitution (from what I know) includes Sharia law, I don't see how it can. Only Turkey ever made a real attempt at it, and now they also heading back to being an Islamic state, seeing as how their bids to be a member of the EU has been rejected.

At 7:50 Aussiegirl said...

And let's not forget that in attempting to make a modern secular state out of Turkey Ataturk forcibly de-Islamicized the country because he obviously understood that traditional Islam is incompatible with a free and open western democracy. He banned the wearing of the traditional fez and Romanized the alphabet, abolished the Caliphate which embodied the religious authority of the Sultans and all other Islamic institutions. He introduced western laws, dress and calendar and removed the constitutional provision which named Islam as the state religion. But as you say, in recent years the fundamentalist Moslems have been making a comeback in their push to return Turkey to an Islamic state. If that happens, Turkey too will sink back into the dark ages.