* The US occupation which is designed to further a (poorly thought out apparently) plan for dominating Iraq - and thereby the region - in some fashion for a variety of reasons familiar to gangsters.
* The chaos and destruction which flows from the occupation including the violent actions some have taken to oppose it.
* The degraded state of the nation's infrastructure after sanctions, war and invasion.
* Internal divisions among Iraqis, some of which may very well lead to multi-pronged civil war, between various political and religous groups.
* Other deadly serious issues I'm not even aware of.
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Just about any one of these would be enough to drive many of us to flee for the hills in terror of the problem's size. When you spend time contemplating them as a whole you realize there are no answers which are anywhere near perfect for this situation.
Should US forces, as part of an internationalized effort, stay in the country to 'provide security'? Perhaps this approach would have had a better chance of success if it had been applied earlier. But now, nearly a year after the end of the invasion, hardcore cadres of fighters (Baathists? al Qaeda fighters? grief stricken, humilated and fed up ordinary Iraqis? all of the above? who truly knows?) have developed, are battle hardened and determined to use violence to oppose occupation.
Maybe the replacement of the 101st Airborne with blue helmets will quell this but no one should have any illusions.
Should all foreign forces withdraw quickly, leaving behind interim supplies while a generous, no strings attached conduit of cash and technical assistance is opened in compensation for the harm done to Iraq?
This sounds like a good option and I'm tempted to support it. But it doesn't take into account the possibility of civil war or, if it does, it treats this as a necessary evil, a 'stage' the country must endure on the path towards a Democratic People's Republic of Iraq.
So, the prolonged presence of foreign forces in Iraq will continue to inspire and attract violence and the withdrawal of those forces may create a vaccum in which a traumatized and radicalized population might turn upon itself in bloody civil war.
Neither option is palatable. I think it's time the 'anti-war' movement begin to understand that the Bush admin's war has backed everyone (including the admin) into a corner from which all obvious steps forward are bad ones.
This doesn't mean there aren't better solutions available only that the two major ones constantly discussed almost surely will lead to more agony.
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I don't claim to have the answers, but it seems to me that to move in the right direction we must perform some actions in concert which are being done now as part of disparate efforts.
For example:
* The occupation's true character (provocative and deadly actions of the military against civilians - Haliburton, Bechtel exploitation of 'opportunities', etc) should be tracked and brought before the Amercian people. The purpose is to bring ordinary folks into a mass movement to apply intelligently directed pressure on the US government to ease the burden Iraqis face. Although there are many unpleasant things about US-er culture (as Wojtek describes it) there are millions of people of good will - and not just proggressives or liberals - who would be aghast if they knew the things being done supposedly in their defense. This is one reason why illusion is such a strong phenomena here; it's preferable to the ugly facts. These are the people we must reach.
The key here is not simply to embarass the government or talk endlessly about their perfidy but use reporting of the hard information to build a mass movement of principled folks for the purpose of applying relentless pressure. Essentially, I'm talking about a lobbying group for Iraqis made up of American citizens.
* We must educate ourselves in depth about Iraq - its history and present situation. Who are the major players? Who has mass popular support? Along what lines is mass opinion divided? The reason some people talk about 'supporting the resistance' is because they have chosen a good versus evil script as simple as any Bush spouts as their meta-tale for understanding Iraq.
Grand Ayatollah al Sistani has demanded swiftly executed direct elections; is this a good thing? And, how many Iraqis believe this is the way forward? Because this demand makes the Bush admin sweat many of us are inclined to see it as a positive development. But is it really?
We must study and make connections with Iraqis to discover more beyond the question of 'occupation yes / occupation no' which is our fixation as Americans.
Again, the purpose here is to learn who the players are and what the various groups vying for power want - as well as what those who are non-aligned desire. It may be possible to broker - through international auspices - an Iraqi national debate (or a similar event) on what the future should look like.
The way to avoid civil war might be through creating a method for competing groups to work through their grievances in public - both those related to American actions and those among Iraqis. The only way to know who should be sitting at the table is by learning who's respected and what the majority of the people want.
The US has attempted to create an ersatz version of just such a national council via the IGC but nearly everyone sees that for the fraud it is.
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These are merely ideas put forward for debate. I'm sure there's much to criticize. Even so, I do not believe the anti-war effort has sought to create a unified approach which addresses the two, most serious problems Iraqis face in my opinion: a.) the occupation and all that follows from it and b.) the internal stresses among Iraqi groups which the toppling of Hussein have brought to light.
DRM