Djelloul Marbrook

The next time a politician or pundit says anything about Iraq, anything at all, ask yourself if you have ever heard him say that Iranians have historically regarded Shi’ism as a deterrent to Arabization?

If you haven’t heard anybody who sounds knowledgeable talking about this, then you have no reason to think him knowledgeable.

We may not have liked Saddam Hussein, but unless we intended to hand over most of Iraq to Iranian influence, we should have thought twice before invading. Iran’s quarrels with the Arabs far outweigh its quarrels with us.

What were we thinking? Were we thinking? Yes, probably we were, about Israel. Our neo-cons and Israel’s revanchists were so focused on the Iranian mullahs’ blather about destroying Israel that we have bulled our way into a notorious china shop.

The conflict between Shia and Sunni is not merely about sectarianism: it’s about the conflict of Arab and Persian culture, about settling old scores, about the balance of power in the Persian (Arabian?) Gulf.

Ask yourself: who has been talking about these matters? John McCain can hardly distinguish between Sunni and Shia and doesn’t seem to understand that Al Qaeda represents an extreme form of Sunni fundamentalism. George Bush thinks we’re winning. Winning what?

And while you’re at it, instead of letting the candidates maunder about whether to get out of Iraq and when to get out and how to get out, ask yourself who is talking about our presence exacerbating an already raw situation?

The way millions of Muslims see it, Crusaders have occupied Muslim land. The way they see it, the Crusaders are not to be believed when they say they’re there for the Muslims’ own good. Why are the Crusaders suddenly worried about the Muslims’ own good? We might believe ourselves, but if we’re to survive in the world we must also learn to see ourselves as others see us. The West has been invading the East at least since Alexander the Great, always for high moral purposes—if you’re a westerner, that is.

When you look at it this way, it’s merely a question of whose blood is going to be shed. The British presence in Iraq after World War I certainly didn’t improve the situation; why should ours? Because we’re so much smarter than the British, who haven’t been smart enough to learn from their own history? Or because the new factor in the equation is Israel, and were it not for such strange bedfellows as our apocalyptos and Israel’s land-grabbers we wouldn’t be in Iraq?

Of course, there is oil to grease the skids. But how exactly has our invasion improved the price at the pump? How has Iraq’s oil paid for the war, as Paul Wolfowitz once grandiosely told Congress it would?

More remarkably absent from the debate on Iraq is any challenge to President Bush’s mantra that he is simply responding to what our generals “on the ground” tell him. Since the beginning of the war the press has been asleep at the switch when it comes to this startling piece of disingenuousness.

First of all, we know that generals and admirals who don’t tell President Bush what he wants to hear don’t last long. Remember Gen. Eric K. Shinseki and, more recently, Adm. William Fallon? On the other hand, the generals who play the President’s game, like David Petraeus, whom the blunt Admiral Fallon called a suck-up, are rewarded. But even in the context of such an obvious trick the press has failed to raise Constitutional issues.

The United States military exists to defend us. It does not exist to make policy “on the ground” or anywhere else. It exists to execute policy—and only in military matters. The President, in concert with Congress, is supposed make it. Of course, we know President Bush doesn’t like to do anything in concert with Congress. To my mind, General Petraeus and not a few other flag officers have come perilously close to putting the military’s proud reputation of political neutrality at risk.

But here the Decider is, and has been, telling us he’s just doing what the generals tell him to do (that is, what they know he wants to hear), and our docile press never whomps up the gumption to say, Mister President, there seems to be something wrong with this picture from a Constitutional viewpoint.                                                           —DM