Dress Right or Die

As a woman in a pants suit campaigns to become President of the United States, others are being killed on the streets of Basra for wearing makeup and not covering their faces.

Religious vigilantes have murdered at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city because of how they dressed, the police chief told AP yesterday, and "dumped in the garbage with notes saying they were killed for un-Islamic behavior."

As American politicians debate the future of the country we invaded almost five years ago, what is happening in Basra, "known for its mixed population and night life" under Saddam Hussein, is a chilling reminder of what we will leave behind, no matter how well the Surge works.

Can the sectarian madness we unleashed be negotiated away by Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad? The Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr controls Basra, but one of his aides blames the murders on "gangs with foreign support to destabilize the city," while citing the "religious principle that says that wearing makeup and forgoing the hijab (headscarf) in public is a sin."

"But killing them," he concedes, "is a sin bigger than this one."

When President Bush makes his next self-congratulatory speech about bringing the blessings of democracy to Iraq, someone should ask him about the women of Basra and remind Hillary Clinton what she voted for in the resolution opening the door to our doing the same for Iran.

A Preview of Iraq Without Us

During his testimony last week, Gen. Petraeus described what’s happening in the city of Basra as “mildly heartening.”

Despite worries about Iran’s increasing influence in the Shiite city, Petraeus noted, "Interestingly there is an accommodation down there right now that is the kind of Iraqi solution to problems in the south.”

As British troops leave, Basra offers a preview of what might happen when the U. S. gets out of the whole country. In a report-in-depth today, the Christian Science Monitor describes “Iraq's second-largest city where Shiite parties, militiamen, and criminal gangs all are locked in a vicious fight for power...

“This is a city that operates according to a fragile balance of military force, fear, cronyism, and business interests...Basra is a predominately Shiite city, yet it is still imbued with fear of kidnappings, assassinations, and being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“This instability reveals that the violence in Iraq is not only sectarian or the result of insurgent activity, but is also caused by deep-seated political and tribal rivalries and an intense scramble for power.”

The overall picture sounds like a compression of American history from the Wild West to the Roaring Twenties.

"We are in a wait-and-see approach with Basra,” Gen. Petraeus told Congress, “but we have every expectation that Basra will be resolved by Iraqis."

How long will we have to wait and see? The British are leaving. If Basra is going to be “resolved” by Iraqis, why not all of Iraq?

We are not going to spread sweet reason among fanatical factions who will outwait us no matter how long we are there. What, besides George W. Bush’s place in history as a President who didn’t admit defeat, do we accomplish by staying?

An Inconvenient Death

The President’s speech writer had to make a last-minute addition to his TV talk tonight about “the way forward” in Iraq.

Right after “The changes in Anbar show all Iraqis what becomes possible when extremists are driven out,” he had to add “Earlier today, one of the brave tribal sheiks who helped lead the revolt against al-Qaeda was murdered.” Abu Risha was the head of the Anbar Awakening Council with whom the President had posed for a smiling picture just 10 days ago.

“This is a tragic loss," Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, said of the Sunni sheik's death. "It shows how significant his importance was and it shows al-Qaeda in Iraq remains a very dangerous and barbaric enemy."

By the inverted logic that is by now so familiar, the assassination of the key man in our Anbar “victory” proves how desperate the defeated enemy has become.

As a reminder that we are fighting on at least two fronts, another U.S. general said today that an attack on our headquarters garrison this week was carried out with the kind of 240 mm rocket that Iran provides to Shiite extremists.

One person was killed and 11 wounded in the attack Tuesday at Camp Victory, the headquarters of Multinational Forces-Iraq, by a rocket from a Baghdad district infiltrated by breakaway factions of the Mahdi Army militia of Muqtada al-Sadr.

For anyone keeping score, that keeps the Sunni and Shiite murderers tied in what the President tonight termed “the gains we are making” in Iraq. But as he reassured us, it’s going to be a long contest, even if it has to go into overtime.

Will Bush's Victory Lap Backfire?

During his six-hour stay in a well-fortified air field in Anbar, the President may well have exacerbated sectarian tension in a way that will produce what Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called “squirting” of attacks to Shiite areas of Iraq.

"We had a good frank discussion," Bush said after his meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and top leaders today, which translates as pressure to make progress in coming to terms with Sunnis in Iraq’s central government.

At the same time, the President promised more aid to Sunni tribal leaders who have only recently turned against car-bombing insurgents from Saudi Arabia for their own reasons, certainly not out of friendship for the U. S.

But as always, Bush may be out of his depth in the quagmire of sectarian hatred. “Mr. Maliki,” the New York Times reported, “has been deeply worried about the outreach to Sunni tribes, which has included American support for setting up armed neighborhood watch groups in Anbar and other Sunni areas.”

A political scientist funded by the Defense Department, Robert Pape, who has studied suicide attacks over the past 25 years, now predicts Shiite action against Americans soon. "We're heading toward the cocktail of conditions that favor suicide terrorism from the Shia," he says.

Pape points out that our troop buildup in Iraq, which has begun to target Shiite groups such as Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army as well as Sunni insurgents, will cause increasing numbers of Shiites to see Americans the way many Sunnis do--as occupiers, rather than liberators.

In Iraq, the choices always seem to involve frying pans and fires.

Maliki's Meet the Press Panel

After a touchy few words about American Senators’ “severe interference in our domestic affairs,” Iraq’s Prime Minister assembled a Sunni, Shiite and Kurd panel today for his own Sunday talk show to report consensus on national reconciliation, an incredible feat in the face of a parliament still on vacation after Sunni leaders had stalked out of the government.

Incredible may be the operative word here, but the Democrats’ best move might be to congratulate Maliki, apologize for Hillary Clinton’s and Carl Levin’s rash calls for his removal and have Congress ready to start authorizing withdrawal of our troops in the face of the good news.

“I hope that this agreement will help Iraq move beyond the political impasse," the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih said. "The five leaders representing Iraq's major political communities...affirmed the principle of collective leadership to help deal with the many challenges faced by Iraq."

The White House responded by announcing we will "continue to support these brave leaders and all the Iraqi people in their efforts to overcome the forces of terror who seek to overwhelm Iraq's democracy.”

Terror? Is there some doubt that Maliki has it nailed? Some suspicion he might be putting on a show to forestall getting kicked out of office? Not possible, not two days after President Bush said he’s “a good guy, a good man with a difficult job, and I support him.”

Checking Out al Maliki

The problem with puppet governments is that they come with strings. In Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki keeps trying to show he’s not our man but keeps tripping over his ties to fellow Shiites and losing Sunnis who don’t trust him. Now he’s losing us, too.

President Bush is expressing “frustration,” and Ambassador Ryan Crocker is echoing him: "We do expect results, as do the Iraqi people, and our support is not a blank check." So is the No. 2 commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen Raymond Odierno, using same “blank check” expression.

The American people meanwhile are picking up a monthly tab of $9 billion dollars and 100 lost lives while the President keeps saying “if the government doesn't respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government. That's up to the Iraqis to make that decision.”

But which Iraqis and when? As we keep coaching from the sidelines and talking about checks, blank or otherwise, how do we persuade the world we’re not pulling the strings? And if they replace al Maliki, most likely with an even more openly Shiite partisan, what happens then?

When Crocker and Gen. Petraeus give us their progress report next month, Congress will want an update on al Maliki’s checking account to go with it.

Buying Words With Blood

Sen. Carl Levin says the glass in Iraq is more than half-empty, Sen. John Warner says it may be half-full and Fox News sees it brimming over.

“Sens. Warner and Levin Travel to Iraq, Praise Surge Results” is their headline for a story that starts: “Sen. Carl Levin said Monday that the Iraqi Parliament should vote no confidence in the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki because of its sectarian nature and leadership.

"The Maliki government is non-functional," Levin, D-Mich., said.”

Since President Bush, instead of drawing down troops in Iraq at the beginning of this year as 70 percent of Americans wanted him to do, announced the Surge, more than 700 of our young people have died there and thousands have been wounded.

With all this blood, we have bought words--from the White House, Congress and self-appointed experts across the political spectrum. Next month, we will get words from Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, which will lead to even more words from armchair warriors on all sides.

None of them will stop the dying and, if we want to know what for, here are words from a commander on the ground: “This is not black and white here. It’s all shades of grey, and there’s a mixture of extremist elements and terror elements and criminal activity. It’s all of the above,” according to Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of Multinational Division Center and Task Force Marne, whose words are reported on a Department of Defense web site.

“It’s naive to believe that all sorts of violence inside of Iraq is Sunni vs. Shiia or Shiia vs. Sunni; that’s just not true. And when you find intra-Shiia rivalry, it’s primarily a function of the struggle for power and influence.”

How many words will it take to stop the bleeding?

A Preview of the Iraq to Come

In today’s Washington Post we can see the future, and it doesn’t work. The southern city of Basra, where there has been no sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites, once considered a “success story” of the post-Saddam era, is now becoming a different place as British troops prepare to leave.

“Three major Shiite political groups,” the Post reports, “are locked in a bloody conflict that has left the city in the hands of militias and criminal gangs, whose control extends to municipal offices and neighborhood streets. The city is plagued by ‘the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors,’ a recent report by the International Crisis Group said.”

There is no ideological winner or loser. The U.S., Britain and Iran, the ISG concludes, are “equally confused” about what’s happening in the city with two-thirds of Iraq’s oil resources.

Our politicians have been arguing over whether Iraq is emblematic of the Middle East and to what extent our staying or going is a test case of our will and accepting responsibility for what has followed the overthrow of Saddam.

Last month, Colin Powell said that troops “can only put a heavier lid on this boiling pot of sectarian stew.” As in Basra, today’s report suggests, there are also boiling non-sectarian stews all over Iraq and that keeping the lids on is not the critical question.

Until the heat is turned down by the emergence of another Saddam or, more likely, a number of regional Saddams, our going or staying is not the answer. The withdrawing British are not leaving behind a “success story” in Basra, but would their staying have made any difference or only postponed the inevitable outcome?

Smart People, Dumb Choices

As an antidote to Bush fatuity, we now have the thinking man’s explanation for supporting the war and getting it totally wrong.

A former Harvard professor now a member of the Canadian parliament, Michael Ignatieff writes in the New York Times Magazine today:

“The people who truly showed good judgment on Iraq predicted the consequences that actually ensued but also rightly evaluated the motives that led to the action. They did not necessarily possess more knowledge than the rest of us...What they didn’t do was take wishes for reality. They didn’t suppose, as President Bush did, that because they believed in the integrity of their own motives everyone else in the region would believe in it, too. They didn’t suppose that a free state could arise on the foundations of 35 years of police terror...

“I went to northern Iraq in 1992. I saw what Saddam Hussein did to the Kurds...I let emotion carry me past the hard questions, like: Can Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites hold together in peace what Saddam Hussein held together by terror? I should have known that emotions in politics, as in life, tend to be self-justifying...”

Ignatieff is more than a bit glib, but shrewd on the differences between academics and politicians: “Among intellectuals, judgment is about generalizing and interpreting particular facts as instances of some big idea. In politics, everything is what it is and not another thing. Specifics matter more than generalities. Theory gets in the way.”

But Ignatieff is too easy on himself. Going back to David Halberstam’s dissection of the intellectuals who misled JFK into Vietnam, the ironically titled “The Best and the Brightest,” it has become fashionable to dismiss thinking in favor of instinct in matters of war and peace, life and death. We need both, and we need them in people who admit human fallibility and still have the courage to make the best decisions they can.

Informed emotion may sound like an oxymoron, but it’s our best hope.