Opinion
 

Conflicting factions destabilizing Iraq

Paul Saleeba

It's no fun being on the political left these days; we're pretty much out of the scene in national politics when the Republicans put their foot down on anything. And unfortunately, as the events in Iraq have shown, the left was right.

It's not the sort of thing you want to gloat about -- more than 600 U.S. soldiers dead, dismembered mercenaries hung from bridges and both the Sunnis and Shiites staging uprisings.

We won the war. No one doubts that, even though no one can seem to agree on why we went to war. If you listen to many Arabs, it was about oil and Israel. Philip Zelikow, a Republican on the 9/11 commission, would partially agree with them.

"Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 -- it's the threat against Israel," Zelikow said.

The Bush administration says the war was about weapons of mass destruction. Republican think tank the Project for the New American Century, which has several members inside the Bush administration's top levels including Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, says that the invasion of Iraq was for two purposes. It served to setup a permanent base in the Middle East and to setup a democracy for other states to look to as a model.

All of those goals seem admirable, but the problem that the left raised is this: Iraq is a diverse country with factions that hate each other but also hate the United States for several reasons. First, we supported Saddam and helped him into power as our man in the Middle East against the communists. Communism was bad, but when you have to live under the rule of a man like Saddam, you won't forget who's oppressing and gassing you with the United State's support. The other problem is if the majority in Iraq wins the elections, the country will likely have a Shiite Muslim leader, which is unacceptable to the United States and the 40 percent remainder of Sunnis and Kurds.

And the worst of it is, no matter who says we should pull out, be it Bill O'Reilly or John Kerry, should the United States leave Iraq now, the country will fall into chaos. It is a divided nation right now, but only so long as the United States is there. Should we leave we could have another Bosnia or Rwanda. The United States cannot leave; while the price is heavy both in dollars and lives, if we left now we would endanger all 24 million Iraqis. Power would return to the most brutal elements in society and the United States would bear the repercussions.

The Bush administration needs to stuff the election and partisan politics and do the right thing in Iraq: Stay, set up a government, turn over power and insist on rebuilding the infrastructure. We cannot quit now that we have started although it will not be an easy job.

Saleeba, a columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at marskitt3n@hotmail.com.