Reality vs. Kabuki Two Sign Posts in Iraq

WILLIAM S. LIND

...It is difficult to find anything in Iraq that points to a successful restoration of an Iraqi state. The Iraqi Government's ongoing attempt at "national reconciliation" seems to hold little promise because that government is a creature of a foreign occupier and remains under its control. Nothing illustrated that fact better than the immediate American veto of the Iraqi Government's desire to offer amnesty to resistance fighters who have killed American troops. Obviously, such amnesty would have to be part of any deal with the resistance. That would be true even if the resistance were losing; it is all the more so when the resistance is winning. Winners seldom surrender and allow themselves to be put on trial. In the end, the Iraqi resistance, in all its many dimensions, represents reality, "flip-flops on the ground." Iraq's government and state security forces, in contrast, are kabuki. And no kabuki performance goes on forever...

continua / continued