Goalposts moved on Constitution - WaPo Positive Headline finds popularity at a time of Doubt
I couldn't help but notice that one particular article is getting a lot of blog attention today. The headline is intriguing - Iraqi Sunnis Battle To Defend Shiites - it sounds so bold, so new, a mark of success. Curiously, it's at a time of a lot of confusion in Iraq. The goalposts have been arbitrarily moved on the deadline for the Iraq constitution, which is not in accordance with Iraq's original Transitional Administrative law.
Here's an excerpt from the WaPo article:
Washington and the U.S.-backed Iraqi transitional government have worked to split mainstream Iraqi Sunnis from the radical foreign fighters, hoping to draw them away from the insurgency and into the political process that many rejected after the toppling of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated government in 2003.
[WaPo]
I have serious questions about the accuracy and tone of this particular statement.
The writers, who are both excellent writers, in my opinion, lead us to believe there are mainstream Sunnis, and there are radical foreign fighters.
And nothing in between.
They also seem to ask us to believe that Washington has consistently worked to win the hearts and minds of Sunni-Arabs, yet I have seen actions (political and military) that scream something different. One example - Operation Lightning, where Shi'ites and Kurds were employed to fight Sunni Arabs - an opening salvo to civil war if I've ever seen one.
Iraq's Sunni Arabs believe things have never been worse. As recently as two months ago, Sunni Arabs accused Shiite militiamen of killing their clerics and hounding them out of government jobs to make way for supporters of ruling coalition parties. These are not foreign fighters we're talking about here, people.
Approximately 15 percent of the population who are Sunni Arabs, primarily of the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam, subscribe to a broad spectrum of ideologies and affiliations, many of which have little to do with religion. Their ethnic identity is more of a force for either social unity or discord than their religious identity. Iraq's Sunni Arabs inhabit the valleys of the Euphrates above Baghdad, and of the Tigris between Baghdad and Mosul. Ar Ramadi is about 75 miles West of Baghdad, on the road to Damascus via Rutba. It's the capital of Al Anbar province.
The story about Sunni neighbors helping to protect Shi'ite neighbors is a positive one, and there are close ties of friendship, marriage and compassion which bind Shiites and Sunnis in Ar Ramadi. (as quoted from the WaPo article).
I am not surprised that most of these people do not want their city to be turned to rubble, as they saw happen to al Fallujah. I do not blame them for fighting back on their own. I would imagine any of us decent souls would do the same thing.
Now let's get back to the big picture.
The Sunni Arabs-Shia division has been, mostly a political and socioeconomic struggle over the allocation and distribution of wealth and political power, with "radical foreign fighters" as a minority (albeit a powerful minority).
As columnist Jim Hoagland said back in 2003, democracy has been a code word for U.S. domination to Sunni Arabs, and even many in the Shiite majority. We have never seemed to have developed a successful strategy that has convinced Sunni Arabs that a new Constitution would adequately protect their interests. We have not yet succeeded in splitting the Sunni Arab population from the killers based among them.
If we had succeeded, there would be a Consitution today, with Sunni Arabs ready and willing at the table. Instead, I've heard talk that they may have to be excluded from the Constitutional process altogether in order to meet the deadline.
It sounds as if Iraqi neighbors helped their neighbors today in Ar Ramadi. That's a good thing. I happen to believe that the Iraqi people are not unlike you or me - we have compassion for our neighbors. I'd imagine this is not an isolated incident, although it has been brought into the spotlight by the White House at a most necessary time - and for a political purpose.
The story as told by the Washington Post today, especially the misleading headline, seems frighteningly reminiscent of the old pre-war Iraq adherence to the White House-style "happy talk" without a nod to the larger reality on the ground.
Perhaps I'm just feeling defensive of hard truth after seeing the public led down a garden path in Iraq. I am confident that Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer are both wonderful writers.
It's just that today, of all days, I understand that the struggle cannot ever be "won" without winning the Sunni Arabs, and we are hearing this one bit of positive news on the day when the Iraq Constitution has failed to meet the deadline.
Is this more of the mainstream media editors creating "happy talk" headlines without the journalists properly educating the reading public about the realities? Isn't it their job to be particularly clear in thsi time when teh public is scrutinizing what they read in the press? I'm not sure who the orininal leads were for the journalists' story, so I'm not presuming to know - I'm just wondering.
Iraq remains the most dangerous place in the world to work as a journalist, yet even the New York Times is being pressured to talk "happy talk."