Iraq and Afghanistan

In the May 15 New York Times "Week in Review" James Bennet Expounds at some length on the difficulty of understanding why the insurgency continues and even escalates in Iraq. It is hard to understand if one believes that the critical issues for Iraqis are the overthrow of Saddam, the occupation of the country by foreigners and non-Muslims, or the emerging democratic process. Sadly, I conclude that these issues are no longer foremost in the minds of the insurgents if they ever were. Apparently what has happened is that a critical number of Sunni Arabs have concluded that democracy in Iraq does not and cannot work for them. They understand (in spite of Sunni Arab claims that the Sunnis are actually the majority) that the Shi'a have an overwhelming and possibly expanding majority. They understand that most Shi'a believe that they should at last rule the country and that the past behavior of the Sunni Arabs gives them little right to complain. The Sunni Arab understanding is confirmed by the fact that the security forces of the elected government are made up almost exclusively of Shiites and Kurds (who, of course, make calculations of their own).

The fact that this situation leads the Sunni Arabs to fight bitterly and relentlessly against the democratic system that is coming into being in Iraq should not surprise Americans. After all, it was the shrinking minority of white Southerners in mid-nineteenth century America that decided to fight against what they thought would otherwise be an irresistible northern tide. As they saw it, the democratic system of a united country was simply incapable of saving them or what they saw as their essential interests. The result was our bloodiest war.