We paused, almost in time
Two notable paragraphs at the top of an article in TIME by Joe Klein:
Remember this name: Amar Al-Hakim. He is 36 years old, the heir apparent to one of Iraq’s two leading Shi’ite dynasties, and a few weeks ago in Ramadi, he did something quite remarkable. He went to meet and make peace with the more than 100 Sunni sheiks who led the movement to kick al-Qaeda in Iraq out of Anbar province. He was accompanied by the leader of his family’s militia, the Badr Organization, which was lethally anti-Sunni until recently. The Hakim delegation was ferried to the meeting in Black Hawk helicopters by the U.S. military. “It was quite a scene,” a U.S. military officer who was present told me. “Amar went through a receiving line, hugging each of the Sunni sheiks, and then he made a speech: ‘We are not Shi’ites. We are not Sunnis. We are all Iraqis, and we must reconcile.’ It was a showstopper. He has a real presence. He and the host, Sheik Ahmed [Abu Risha], went and prayed together, which was a big deal symbolically. Then there was a ‘goat grab’–a feast–and an agreement to keep meeting.”
The Ramadi goat grab may turn out to be a significant moment in the stabilization of Iraq … or, since this is Iraq, maybe not. It is certainly a sign that the U.S. military mission is continuing to make progress. The level of attacks against U.S. forces has fallen dramatically across the country. There have been days, in recent weeks, when even Baghdad approached a tolerable level of urban violence and criminality. “And the Ramadi meeting wasn’t at all unique,” a senior U.S. diplomat told me. “You’ve had mass meetings of tribal leaders from Anbar and Karbala provinces,” which are the Sunni and Shi’ite heartlands, respectively. “The governors of those provinces were literally building trenches on their border, and they are now meeting regularly. You had the highest-ranking Sunni politician in the country, Tariq al-Hashemi, go to Najaf to meet with the leading Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani. All of this would have been unthinkable only a few months ago.”
We should have stopped reading before the inevitable: “The apparent progress raises two questions: First, as always, what’s the catch? And second, if the progress is real, if the Sunni extremists have been routed, if Baghdad has been ethnically cleansed to the point of near pacification, if the bottom-up reconciliation efforts are gaining momentum, what is the U.S. military mission now? Why can’t we start bringing home the bulk of our troops immediately?”
What? Has Iraq suddenly turned from an endless soap opera to a half-hour sitcom? Fatuous thinking and writing. But the piece began well, and that’s a start.
October 27th, 2007 at 1:39 am
It began well because the progress is so obvious that even an anti like Klein can’t ignore it. It ended the way it did because, well, he’s an anti.