Untitled Document

27 April 2004

Local Sensibilities

I got good news in the mail yesterday. One of my credit cards told me triumphantly that it had increased the amount of credit they were willing to extend to me.

Their faith in the future is a welcome thing, because I am feeling a little jumpy about things today. I heard the Secretary of State say that what we are going to turn over to the Iraqis at the end of June may not be complete "sovereignty," whatever that means, but it will be something like that.

The Iraqi Ruling Council has weighed in on the matter, in precise English, and fifty-two former British diplomats have written a strong note to the Prime Minister critical of the blind adherence to the American line in the Middle East.

I do not know the total population of the retired diplomatic community in Britain, which I suspect is somewhat larger, but it is another part of the drumbeat that calls for withdrawal. I heard one learned man explain that the way Her Majesty's government got out form under and occupation before was to turn security over to the Arab League.

I contemplated that sage counsel, thinking of 1948, when the departing British turned the police stations over to the Arab League as they left the Transjordan. Or the other face-saving compromises with local sensibility that resulted in Saddam in the first place.

But I am absolutely confident that we are walking toward some sort of face-saving compromise like we got in Paris with the Vietnamese. But in the meantime, we will have to accommodate local sensibilities.

Like the very different situations around the cities of Najaf and Falluja

Shia and Sunni. Problem cities with distinctly different local sensibilities. An Najaf has a firebrand young man named Moktada al-Sadr and a militia of young ardent unemployed young men, the curse of the world.

Sadr is called a "cleric" in the strange shorthand of this war. His father was, certainly, but if the son is, he is not a learned one. He has about the same theological credentials that I do, which I acquired from a small ad in the back of a magazine.

But I share this with Moktada. I could preach up a whirlwind, if that was something I thought we needed here at Big Pink. We have different circumstances. He is young and filled with the hot butter of his passion. I feel am not, and feel a certain chill on the back of my neck.

His brand of thugs are stuffing the Tomb of Ali with munitions for the coming struggle with the Infidels. The infidels, being the First Armor Division of the United States Army, are trying to work subtlety.

The grown ups, the merchants, are appalled at Sadr. He is an odious little creep but his words have a resonance across Iraq's Shia south. An American move against him will have consequences in the British zone of Basrah part of the intricate calculus of local sensibility.

We also have some local sensibilities among the Infidels. Remember when the 3rd Armor first came to Najaf? A patrol was approaching the Tomb of Ali, the holiest of holies, and confronted by an agitated mob, the young Lieutenant defused the situation by having his platoon kneel, weapons pointed in the air.

He defused the situation, and let the Shias protect their self-respect.

We are trying to do the same in Najaf today, covering the departing Spanish who are withdrawing due to the sensibilities of the electorate. Unfortunately, Sadr's militia decided to get into last night and 43 of them are dead. So it was not possible to take a knee. A soft line is not selling well.

We appear to be less concerned with the sensibilities of the Sunnis in Falluja to the north. That has been a magnet for foreign fighters, and we have no base of opportunity there. The residents are the disenfranchised in this script, former adherents of the ancient regime. So we have given them the Marines. Who have their own sensibilities.

They took fire from a mosque, and after being pinned down for a couple hours took direct action. The photos this morning show the minaret is down after the gunships and tanks responded. When things like this occurred in the first Gulf War, we had a team that compiled evidence on what we called "collateral damage." Saddam even knocked down some minarets himself to inflame his people with righteous anger.

We don't care about the local sensibilities in Falluja, and we do in Najaf. Two different problems.

And a common outcome.

I wish I had a solution in my bag of tricks, and wish that Ambassador Bremer had one, too. But I am not confident that we do.

I suspect the long disengagement is beginning, and it will be the troops that have to deal with everyone's sensibilities as best they can.