Liberation and romancing the Americans.

Fouad Ajami wrote an eloquent piece 3 days ago which, unfortunately, can only be read at the Wall Street Journal if one registers.

It is an informative and surprising opinion piece in light of all that the main stream media is reporting on Iraq.

Excerpts:

Four months ago, I had seen the Sunni despondency, their recognition of the tragedy that had befallen them in Baghdad. That despondency had deepened in the intervening period. No Arab cavalry had ridden to their rescue, no brigades had turned up from the Arabian Peninsula or from Jordan, and the Egyptians were far away. Reality in Iraq had not waited on the Arabs.
...
"We may differ with our American friends about tactics, I might not see eye to eye with them on all matters. But my message to them is one of appreciation and gratitude," [Nouri al-Maliki] said. "To them I say, you have liberated a people, brought them into the modern world. They used to live in fear and now they live in liberty. Iraqis were cut off from the modern world, and thanks to American intervention we now belong to the world around us. We used to be decimated and killed like locusts in Saddam's endless wars, and we have now come into the light."
...
National reconciliation - the sword of Damocles held over [Maliki's] head by his American detractors - is not easy in a country "without a history of dialogue and give-and-take. This may require two or three years. Grant us time, and you will be proud of what you have helped bring forth here."
...
The historical dilemma of his country was there for everyone to see: "For the Kurds, this is the time of taking, for the Shiite, this is the time of restitution, for the Sunnis this is the time of loss. But ours is one country, and it will have to be shared."
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[Vice President Adel Abdul] Mahdi was not apologetic about what Iraq offers the United States by way of justification for the blood and treasure and the sacrifice: "Little more than two decades ago, in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution and the Lebanon War of 1982, the American position in this region was exposed and endangered. Look around you today: Everyone seeks American protection and patronage. The line was held in Iraq; perhaps America was overly sanguine about the course of things in Iraq. But that initial optimism now behind us, the war has been an American victory. All in the region are romancing the Americans, even Syria and Iran in their own way."
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In their fashion, Americans have their "metrics" and "benchmarks" with which they judge this war and the order in Iraq they had midwifed. For the war's critics, there can be no redemption of this war, and no faith that Iraq's soil could bring forth anything decent or humane. Yesterday two men of extraordinary talent and devotion, America's military commander and its ambassador, told of the country they know so well. They - and that distant country - deserve to be heard.


global war on terror Iraq national reconciliation Petraeus surge