Negotiations Now!

[shraby]

The Iraq war always had a Seinfeldian air about it: it was, and is, a war about nothing – fought over nonexistent WMD, and a non-threat posed by a regime that had no links to 9/11, ending in a non-victorious "victory." The latest non-event to not really occur is the much-anticipated "handover" of sovereignty to the new "interim" government – a furtively unceremonious ceremony carried out 2 days earlier than scheduled in order to forestall any trouble, with all of 6 people in attendance.

Everything about this war is a lie, or an illusion, including the "sovereignty" of a nation occupied by foreign troops and still bound by former Viceroy Paul Bremer's edicts. The phantom pseudo-"government" is merely the U.S. military hiding behind an Iraqi mask. When George W. Bush took office, we were assured that now "the adults are in charge," but there is something oddly childish about all these pretenses: it reminds me of my little nephew playing peek-a-boo, who really believes he's invisible when he puts his hands in front of his face.

But the Bush administration is going to have to face reality sooner or later, and they might as well start now. After all, what have they go to lose? The majority of Iraqis already hate their guts, and their handpicked puppets can hardly step out of their fortified compounds without being assassinated. Short of withdrawing altogether, there is very little the administration can do except hope the American casualty count doesn't reach 1,000 too close to election day. We can't leave, or so the conventional wisdom would have it, and we can't stay. It's the very definition of a quagmire.

However, there is one step Washington could take – short of coming to its collective senses, cutting our losses, and getting the heck out – that would reduce casualties on both sides. It would also take the heat off the administration politically, and pave the way for some minimal level of security, without which no real handover of sovereignty is ever going to occur. As Fareed Zakaria, who supported the war, suggests, we could start talking to the insurgents.

(more)

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