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February 16, 2006
Iraq: Then And Now
It is amazing how trivial news can overshadow the truly important stories--see Birdshotgate versus the restarting of Iran's uranium enrichment program, for example.
Another non-trivial story is the release of audio tapes of meetings held by Saddam Hussein in which the concealment of Iraq's WMD programs was discussed. As Ed Morrissey notes, the dull banal tone of the participants is striking--no one wants to stand out as an original thinker when your boss feeds his rivals into shredding machines.
Contrast that picture of Iraq's leadership to one more current: Mohammed at Iraq the Model continues their exemplary reporting of the nuts and bolts of a functioning constitutional government--a government fairly elected by people it governs.
Despite earlier concerns that the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) would dominate the new government to the detriment of the Sunnis and Kurds, as Mohammed reports that the UIA may be feeling the strain of inner conflict:
The other important meeting was the one between Talbani, Barzani, Adnan al-Dulaimi and Allawi in the presence of the American ambassador. In this meeting they stressed on the need to form a national unity government. Not much leaked from this particular meeting but by following several local media sources one can find that this meeting was relatively successful in maturing the idea of establishing a new alliance that is bigger than the UIA in order to nominate another PM other than Jafari.[...]
A lot of the Iraqi politicians said that this option is not far from possible; Khalaf al-Ilayan from the Accord Front said it's possible to form such a large bloc with the participation of the Kurdish alliance under the umbrella of the "united congress for national work" which already has the Iraqi list, Accord and Dialogue fronts in it.
Interest in this direction is growing by the day, the Sunni and Allawi have formed a team from their leading figures to do further negotiations with the Kurds in a series of meetings that will soon follow the first meeting in order to change the idea into facts on the ground.
Emphases mine. No one knows what the future holds for Iraq, but I defy anyone to read Mohammed's account of the political give-and-take that is now occurring and then claim that Iraq is not unimaginably better off than it was while in the grip of the Saddam and his yes men.
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