[whataretheysaying] Mary Madigan: Amir Taheri on Iraq

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
Amir Taheri on Iraq
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1161618583.shtml


   [1]Iraq Uniting against the Jihadis

     Iraq today is the central battlefield in the global war between two
     mutually exclusive visions of the future. Yet the jihadists now
     know they can't win on that battlefield. After three years of
     near-daily killings, often in the most horrible manner imaginable,
     they've failed to alter Iraq's political agenda. Nor have they won
     control of any territory or even broadened their constituency.

     The jihadists have suffered thousands of casualties, with many more
     captured by Coalition forces and the new Iraqi army and police.
     Despite more than 120 suicide operations, and countless attacks on
     civilian targets, the jihadists have been on the defensive since
     they lost their chief base at Fallujah last year. Their strategic
     weakness: They can't translate their killings into political gains
     inside Iraq...

     ... That morale, however, is under constant attack from two
     sources. The first is the part of the international (especially
     pan-Arab) media that depicts Iraq as a wayward train racing ahead
     with no light at the end of a dark tunnel.

     The second threat to Iraqi morale is by far the most serious. It
     concerns uncertainty about the commitment of the United States and
     its allies to new Iraq.

     Just as Rome was not built in a day, creating a pluralist democracy
     on the ruins of one of the nastiest of Arab tyrannies takes time.
     It took the United States and its allies 10 years to hand over the
     government of post-war Austria to Austrians. In Bosnia, the United
     States and its allies are now scheduled to hand over the reins of
     government to the Bosnians themselves - after a decade. In Iraq,
     the handover came just two years after liberation.

   * link thanks to [2]Fausta

References

   1. http://www.nypost.com/seven/10202006/postopinion/opedcolumnists/iraq__uniting_against_the_jihadis_opedcolumnists_amir_taheri.htm?page=3
   2. http://faustasblog.com/2006/10/iraq-uniting-against-jihadis.html