George Will: Bleakness in Baghdad [View All]

Bleakness In Baghdad

By George F. Will
Sunday, March 19, 2006; Page B07

At this moment, one of the most dangerous since World War II, America's perils are exacerbated by the travails of a president indiscriminately despised by Democrats and increasingly disregarded by Republicans. What should he do? First, concentrate the public's mind on the deepening dangers beyond Iraq. Second, regarding Iraq, accentuate the negative and eliminate the positive -- that is, emphasize the dangers of failure and de-emphasize talk about Iraq's becoming a democracy that ignites emulative transformation in the Middle East...

<Tom Ricks, military correspondent for The Post, has doubts. He recently returned from his fifth visit to Iraq. In March 2003 he thought that the invasion was a strategic mistake in the struggle against terrorism. His assessment of subsequent events is the title of his book, coming in September: "Fiasco." Now, however, he thinks that a U.S. withdrawal would leave chaos that might lead to radical Islamists acquiring what they most want: Saudi oil fields and Pakistani nuclear weapons. So America, he thinks, needs a plan to reduce fatalities to two or three a week, then two or three a month.

<But who, he wonders, will control the likes of Moqtada al-Sadr? Imagine, Ricks says, another cleric, the Rev. Al Sharpton, controlling the Bronx with a militia he can call into the streets at any time. Last Monday, when Bush again celebrated Iraq's progress from tyranny to December's "elections for a fully constitutional government," this was life in Iraq, as reported by the New York Times:

<"Shiite vigilantes seized four men suspected of terrorist attacks, interrogated them, beat them, killed them and left their bodies dangling from lampposts. . . . In Sadr City, the Shiite slum in Baghdad where the terrorist suspects were executed, government forces have vanished. The streets are ruled by aggressive teenagers with shiny soccer jerseys and machine guns. They set up roadblocks and poke their heads into cars and detain whomever they want. . . . 'This is our government now,' said, nodding toward Mr. Sadr's glowering face on television."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/17/AR2006031701795.html