I do _not_ think that Iraqis are incapable of self-government at all, much less "demonstrably" so. It's the US invasion that destroyed the functioning state, and it's the US occupation that is seeking to prevent any Iraqi social force capable of practicing self-government from stepping into the power vacuum created by the "regime change." The USG doesn't want to "walk out" of Iraq, because, unlike Afghans, Iraqis -- be they Sunnis, Shiites, or Kurds -- are much better organized than the USG would like:
***** U.S. and British occupiers are concerned that politics in postwar Iraq will be hijacked by religious, Kurdish or other parties with their own agenda, and are determined to prevent that from happening, said a senior Western diplomat in Baghdad.
That was one reason the provisional authority scrapped a plan to convene a national conference to determine Iraq's political future, he said, asking that his name not be used.
(Steven Gutkin, "Scramble to Fill Power Vacuum Yields Bo Obvious Leader," June 28, 2003, <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/06/28/international1427EDT0542.DTL>) *****
The USG would rather preside over the artificially perpetuated power vacuum, thinly disguised by the US-picked and UN-legitimized "Governing Council," than have it filled by a self-organized indigenous social force who already have their own agenda independent of the USG's.
Obviously, neither Sunnis nor Shiites are happy with US refusal to leave Iraq and let Iraqis govern themselves, so they have and will continue to protest against the occupation and attack and murder US/UK troops and Iraqi collaborators. Pretty soon, the USG will lose even the support of Iraqi Kurds:
Dexter Filkins, "U.S. Is Seeking Troops for Iraq, Turkey Says," NYT, July 22, 2003, <http://www.iht.com/articles/103634.htm>.
***** Copyright © 2003 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com Turkey, the U.S. and the Kurds in northern Iraq John K. Cooley IHT Thursday, July 24, 2003
Complicated alliance
ATHENS -- Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials have plenty to discuss with Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul in Washington this week. The main subject - a U.S. request to Turkey to send at least 10,000 Turkish peacekeeping troops to Iraq - could crucially affect U.S. relations with its old ally.
The United States and Britain sorely need an international peacekeeping force, with or without UN auspices, to stabilize Iraq. With the dispatch of a few hundred Poles and a token force offered by Spain, Italy and some eastern European states, and after refusals from France, Germany and India to send soldiers, the idea of Turkish participation has become more interesting.
Foreign Minister Gul has indicated that Ankara would consider the idea, and Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, confirms it has been raised. But Turkey has its own agenda in Iraq, which may clash with America's Kurdish allies.
Like Washington, Ankara wants to warm up U.S.-$ Turkish relations, which were strongly chilled last March. The extreme unpopularity of the brewing U.S.-led war in Iraq then led Turkey to reject U.S. requests to allow over 60,000 U.S. troops to use Turkey as a war base.
Ankara and Washington would also like to put behind them at least two publicly-reported incidents since last March. Some Turkish Special Forces soldiers in Iraq's northern Kurdish region were detained and expelled by U.S. officers who suspected them of planning hostile acts against the Kurds.
Turkish troops were originally deployed in Iraq's north to monitor a cease-fire between the two main Kurdish groups and to keep an eye on about 5,000 separatist Kurdish fighters of the outlawed Marxist Kurdistan Workers' Party, now called KADEK. These have consolidated and strengthened their old bases in northern Iraq as a result of the security provided by U.S. and British air power against Saddam Hussein's forces during the previous decade, and the relative stability and prosperity brought by the allied occupation since March.
Rebel Kurdish attacks have recently recurred inside Turkey. This, and Turkey's disapproval of the Kurds' seizure of the oil-rich Kirkuk and Mosul regions - where the ethnic Turkish or Turcoman minority lives alongside Kurds and Arabs - have added to mutual distrust between Turkey and the United States. Turkey's government and its politically powerful armed forces have an almost paranoid fear that the 23 million or so ethnic Kurds in Turkey will be encouraged by the ascendancy of U.S.-protected Kurds in northern Iraq to join in creating the nucleus of an independent Kurdish state.
Turkey's perennial Kurdish problem is a huge embarrassment at a time when Turkey is seeking entry into the European Union. Some steps have been taken in authorizing Kurdish language instruction and in other matters, but much remains to be done. These concerns were apparently discussed when General John Abizaid, the new American commander in Iraq, and other officials, met in Ankara July 17-19. Their meetings with senior Turkish military chiefs seem to have helped prepare for Gul's current talks in Washington. These talks should include discussion on how to overcome Kurdish opposition to the entry of any large Turkish contingent into Iraq.
Both the U.S. Ambassador in Ankara, Robert Pearson, and U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, one of the strongest believers in a U.S.-$ Turkish partnership in the administration, have repeatedly said that Washington supports Ankara's wish to rid northern Iraq of rebel Kurds. KADEK is listed in both capitals as a terrorist organization....
<http://www.iht.com/articles/103889.htm> *****
The USG is ready to spread "chaos" to the Iraqi North. The longer the foreign occupation, the more "chaos" in Iraq. -- Yoshie
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