It's Liberation George...But Not As We Know It

Recently Mr. Bush expressed his disappointment that the Iraqi people don't seem to appreciate the sacrifices that America has made on their behalf, nor does he understand how so many Iraqis found their way on to the streets to march in support of Hezbollah. But, as he has also expressed, "...things could be worse."

Today there is a story in the Telegraph, a major British newspaper, about the after-effect of the decision to pull British troops out of a post in Amarah. The post, called Camp Abu Naji, was immediately looted by the local population, helped by the Iraqi troops who were to occupy the base.



The article said: "As news spread through Amarah that the British had gone, locals rushed on to the streets shouting "God is great" and drivers sounded their horns in celebration.

Hundreds gathered around the local offices of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric whose followers had fired 281 mortar rounds and rockets at the camp, to offer their congratulations. A loudspeaker repeatedly broadcast the triumphant message: "This is the first Iraqi city that has kicked out the occupiers."

It would seem that not being able to understand the Iraqis, and disappointment in the Iraqi response to their "liberation", will plague Mr Bush and Mr Blair for some time to come. It is their failure to understand the Iraqis that led them into this blunderous military adventure.

It is time to pull up stakes and let the future of Iraq be determined by the people who live there. The idea that democracy can be forced upon a nation, especially a nation so divided amongst itself that civil war is an almost certainty, is folly in it's grandest sense. Iraq, like the Balkans, is too divided in terms of religion and ethnicity, to remain one nation united in democracy. Democracy is based on compromise, which, given the level of sectarian violence in Iraq, is far from viable in that fragmented country.

Civil war and ethnic cleansing are certain to follow the withdrawal of American and British troops from Iraq. Perhaps, tragically, this is the best thing that could happen. Perhaps, out of the ashes of such a war, a new Iraq will emerge. There might be three new nations where one once stood, or there may be a new and united Iraq forged in the fires of internal conflict, like the USA and England were forged in the fires of their own civil wars. But it is, I believe, up to the Iraqis to determine what their future might be.

Governments have been engineered in the Middle-East before: It was the British and the Americans who installed the Shah in Iran many years ago. But, even with a totalitarian and despotic grip on power, the Shah was doomed from the very beginning. His government was replaced by the current theocracy that Mr Bush is determined to undermine. But what will Mr Bush do with Iran should he depose the Mullahs? Does he expect, as he did in Iraq, that the "liberated" peoples will strew his path with flowers and rejoice at their new found freedom?

My guess is.... He probably does.