ABDUCTION OF SUNNI DISPLAYS GANGLAND EDGE OF IRAQI POLITICS, by Tim Arango --
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/28/world/middleeast/baghdad-abduction-of-sunni-figure-displays-gangland-edge-of-iraqi-politics-with-intimidation-and-violence.html?_r=0
This article appeared a few days ago and solidified for me the need for the U.S. to keep out of Middle East politics...period."Just before midnight (a week ago) on Friday, Shiite militiamen in eight black S.U.V.'s rolled up to the Baghdad home of an important Sunni politician and abducted him and four of his bodyguards, a brazen move that threatened to further convulse a country already in the grip of a political crisis.
For hours at a secret location on Baghdad's southeastern edge, the bodyguards said, they were beaten with a lead pipe, their tormentors demanding that they admit that their boss, Riyadh al-Adhadh, the president of Baghdad's provincial council, was preparing to support an invasion of the capital by Sunni militants fighting under the banner of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, who are in control of large mounts of territory in the north and west of Iraq. The episode, which ended with the eventual release of the five men, was a vivid portrayal of what Iraqi politics looks like up close, playing out like a gangster movie and defined by its currencies of intimidation and violence.
The United States and other foreign powers have pressed for a political solution to Iraq's growing crisis, and President Obama has suggested that more military help...will come only with the formation of a new, inclusive government with meaningful roles for the Sunnis and Kurds, Iraq's two main minority groups...
...Yet the abductions are another sign that American demands for political reconciliation seem divorced from the reality of Iraqi politics.
After a harrowing ordeal, the abducted men were returned to their homes on Saturday afternoon...
...In Baghdad...the wholesale sectarian slaughter that nearly tore the country apart in 2006 and 2007 has not yet returned, but militias, loyal to a sect or sometimes to just a man, are back....It is a gangland culture deeply intertwined with the culture of Iraqi politics...
...(Several) Shiite militias aligned with Iran, (have) been given wide authority by (Prime Minister) Maliki to provide security in Baghdad, and root out so-called sleeper cells of Sunni insurgents inside the capital...Mr. Adhadh's abduction appeared to be one of these operations....
...Mr. Maliki's government has frequently singled out Sunni lawmakers using the pretense of terrorism charges...In late 2011, the government accused the Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi, of terrorism and later went after the Sunni finance minister, Rafi al-Essawi. Mr. Hasemi, who now lives in Turkey, was sentenced to death in absentia. Mr. Essawi also fled the country.
As the events played out near Mr. Adhahdh's home on Saturday, two young men sat in their furniture shop around the corner. They recalled the days when one man had a monopoly on violence, a situation they said differed from today, when myriad militias and armed men have the power to kill and intimidate with impunity.
One of the men, Abu Abdullah, said, 'I think Iraq requires another leader like Saddam Hussein, who's like an official murderer.'
The other man, Abu Mohammed, also said the prescription for Iraq's chaos was to revert to the past, when, as he explained it, the power to kill was in one man's hands.
'Someone like Saddam has to bring law and order quickly to Iraq,' he said."
In America, when the opposing party doesn't agree with the President, they sue him. In Iraq, when the President doesn't agree with the Vice President, his party sees that he is sentenced to death. There is no common ground here.
Iraq is a a microcosm of the Middle East as a whole, a region of fragmentation where loyalty to tribe and religious sect is valued over any sense of national identity.
The West's attempts to force a Western style democracy in places like Iraq have ended in an atmosphere that looks like the Mafia writ large. Without "an official murderer" to keep the peace, Iraq has devolved into warring factions, each determined to rise to the top of killer elite--to become the new Saddam.
Our style of democracy may happen in that region someday, but it will happen at its own pace and in its own time. It cannot be forced. For now, we should confine our interaction to humanitarian aid and leave the warring factions to fight and die on their own.
Not one more American life.
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