Why we remain but don't wear rags on our heads

One should not live under the impression that American designs on Iraq are entirely benign. Their stated goal is to establish a viable democracy in the once-Baathist regime. To use the neo-conservative lingo; Iraq would be a bastion of transparent and equitable government in a sea of Arab despots. God willing, and this is Bush ruminating, Iraq would expose the error of the despots, and force a popular movement supporting democracy out into the open.

In the meantime, American forces cannot withdraw from the country they helped ravage from the ground up. Just last month, the Democrats mischievously added a caveat to Bush's call for more funds to be released to the American Project in Iraq. A timetable stipulating a deadline for troops to withdraw from Iraq was appended to the bill. As was expected, Bush wielded his Presidential veto to shoot down the bill. There was outrage all round the neo-conservative table. How could the Americans pull out now? Would that not hand victory over to the Iraqi insurgents who had been calling for Americans to leave the country in the first place?

Putting such childish reasons aside, I do agree that pulling the troops out now would lead to disaster. Sectarian hatred, once such a rare thing in Iraq, has been stoked to boiling point, chiefly because of the entry of Salafist-inspired al-Qaeda into the theater of war. Salafists consider all Shia Muslims, which is the dominant group in Iraq, apostates- eminently suited for slaying. Their stance is so extreme that some of the domestic militants, ostensibly Sunni Arabs, have sought to distance themselves from them. While the rabid sectarianism can be laid directly at the door of the Salafist extremists, their entry into Iraq cannot. From the outset, the Bush Administration must have known that a fractured Iraq occupied by American troops would be a tantalizing magnet for such groups, whose members originate from all over the Middle East but chiefly from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The logic was, better that the terrorists fight on the soil of the 'ragheads' than the hallowed soil of the homeland.

But there is another reason why America does not want to pull out anytime soon. A sovereign and independent Iraq would spell disaster for American ambitions. The government would not only be dominated by Shia Muslims, it would also be closely connected with Iran, hitherto a pariah state as far as the Bush Administration is concerned. Furthermore, a strong, viable Shia across Iran and Iraq would surely provoke nationalist sentiments in the already-repressed Shia population in Saudi Arabia, which is a mainstay in America's list of allies.

The solution thus far has been an unimaginative pounding together of disparate individuals and parties into a government that can barely function outside the Green Zone, an area heavily guarded by American and Iraqi troops. The latest weapon brought to bear down on the incessant violence going on in the country is a surge in troop levels and a more aggressive approach in the hunt for terrorists suspects. Indeed, it is the Shia militias instead of the more deadly Sunni militants that have borne the brunt of the American crackdown. This in itself should be instructive. American policymakers fear the prospect of an assertive Shia polity more than the suicide bombings (a tactic shunned by the Shia clergy anyway) carried out by Sunni militants. Why bother, when Sunni targets have almost been exclusively Shia Muslims, marketplaces, rituals and shrines?