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Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Ozeti
Blood, tears and still no victory
BAGHDAD
Mter meeting "the right guy" for Iraq, George Bush mocks the idea of a graceful exit
GEORGEBUSH returned to the Middle
East this week a diminished figure. At
home he has been thumped by the voters.
ln Iraq his dreams of an example-setting
democracy have trickled away in blood.
For aIl the brave words he exchanged with
Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, in
Amman atmid-week, it is widely assumed
that his real aim now is simply to arrange a
way for America to leave Iraq as soon as it
decently canoOnly th en would the Republicans
have a chance of retaining the White
House in 2008. And only after it has left
Iraq will America be able to restore its tattered
influence in the wider Middle East.
Such, at any rate, is the conventional
wisdom. But is it correct? And did anyone
tell Mr Bush? The president certainly faces
a daunting array of problems in the region.
ln this special section we look at four of
them: actual civil war in Iraq, potential
civil war in Lebanon, the stalemate in Palestine
and the hostility of an Iran that
seems intent on acquiring nudear weapons.
And yet despite aIl that has gone
wrong in Iraq, America remains by far the
strongest external power in the Middle
East-and for the next two years Mr Bush
will remain its president.
On his way to Amman, Mr Bush did not
talk as if he feIt like a weakling. He insisted
at a NATO summit in Riga that American
troops would not leave the battlefield until
the mission in Iraq was complete. And
after meeting Mr Maliki in Amman, he
promised again that the troops would stay
just as long as Iraq's government wanted
them to. Liberty had to prevail in the Middle
East, the president dedaimed, "and
that's why this business about graceful
exit simply has no realism to it at all."
Realism is in the eye of the beholder.
The fact that Mr Bush met Mr Maliki inJordan's
capital rather th an in Baghdad highlights
how anarchic Iraq has become. Most
ofIraq's politicians daim to want the same
thing America wants: a united, non-sectarian
state and an end to the violence that
has killed tens of thousands in the past
year alone. But with a diffuse network of
Sunni guerrillas pitted against equally disorganised
Shia militias, nobody has the
authority to deliver. The governments that
are party to the conflict, in Iraq and beyond,
are several steps removed from the
actual killing: aIl they can do is to cajole
others to cajole the armed groups.
Mr Maliki succeeded in pressing Mr
Bush to allow more Iraqi soldiers to come
under his direct control. Atpresent most of
them answer to the American chain of
commando But this will not have a huge
impact on the ground. Building up the
Iraqi army, which suffers badly from illdiscipline
and sectarian tensions but still
appears to respond, more or less, to the
prime minister's orders, is taking time. "It's
not easy for a military to evolve from
ground zero," Mr Bush conceded.
Another basic problem is the domestic
political weakness of Mr Maliki. After
their meeting, Mr Bush said that the Shia
prime minister was "the right guy" for Iraq
and that it was in America's interest to help
him. Privately, however, the Americans
are increasingly unhappy about supporting
a government that does not appear to
be making enough effort to restrain Shia
militias and reach out to the Sunnis
Behind the scenes, Mr Bush probably
tried to encourage Mr Maliki to detach
himself from Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical
Shia deric whose followers are believed to
be responsible for a large share of the sectarian
killing. Mr Maliki, however, needs
Mr Sadr, who is one of the few leaders to
have any influence over the Shia sectarian
gangs, most of which daim association
with his Mahdi Army but in practice operate
autonomously. The young firebrand
does appear to be doing a bit to restrain his
more out-of-control followers.
Before the summit, the New Yorh Times ~~
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