Three years in Mess-o-potamia

Last week I walked past this truck parked on the other side of the street:



The truck was part of anti-war demonstrations marking the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. On March 18, approximately 7,000 protesters gathered in downtown Chicago calling for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

On the front of the truck it reads: "Bush lied, 1000s 100,000s died." A single 55-gallon drum labeled "oil" sits in the trailer. The website it advertises is worldcantwait.orgnet. (They have also have a Chicago chapter with their own website.) I don't know much about the organization, and I really doubt that President Bush will look at this and say, "Hmm... Maybe they're right. I should resign." Ah, but I can dream...

In my most recent entries on Iraq, I stressed the importance of their following the "roadmap to democracy" that went into effect upon the "transfer of sovereignty." (I wish I didn't have to put everything in quotes.) It was, in my opinion, still unlikely to bring stability, but it might have been the best hope to give the fledgling government legitimacy and to make it broadly representative of the Iraqi population. It didn't work.

In elections, the Shiite parties secured such a large plurality in the government that the Sunnis were effectively disenfranchised from the new political order. So we end up with an Iraqi government that will be dominated by Shiites (including some radical Shiite clerics), will be allied with its neighbor Iran, and will oppress the Sunni minority. This has resulted in violence between the Sunnis and Shiites that is starting to look an awful lot like civil war -- superimposed on the insurgency against U.S. occupation. A spectacular recent event in the conflict was the February bombing of the Al Askari Mosque, but the ethnic violence is hardly new. There have been reports that death squads have been at work around Baghdad for months, murdering thousands.

The Bush Administration has been aggressively denying that there is a civil war in Iraq, and they have been criticizing the media as being overly negative. As JCS Chairman General Peter Pace said a few weeks ago on Meet the Press, "[Things in Iraq are] going well. I wouldn't put a great big smiley face on it, but I would say they're going very, very well..." Well, then. I guess the opening of a new school really does make up for the 50 or 60 dying every day (the daily toll claimed by Iyad Allawi).

Whatever goodwill the U.S. gained from the Iraqi people by removing a brutal despot, we are losing as a result of our continued occupation and of our failure to bring order. According to a recent BBC poll, Iraqis are now evenly split on whether U.S. forces should stay or pull out. In the past, we've been pretty good at leaving resentment in our wake when we've intervened in oil-rich, Muslim countries, and I take little joy in seeing this pattern continue.