Iraq’s last ‘SOS’

By Fatih Abdulsalam

Azzaman, September 7, 2006

How much I wished that the Iraqi parliament speaker, Mahmud Mashhadani would elaborate further on one crucial sentence he uttered the other day in which he warned Iraqi leaders that “Iraq’s ship will sink taking everyone with it unless you solved your differences in three or four months.”

This statement shows unprecedented courage and frankness which one cannot find in all the statements made regarding the situation in Iraq since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

But if the long years since the invasion could not solve the country’s problems, how will the coming three or four months manage to do that. I do not think there is a sane or insane person who thinks that after all the killings and blunders that followed the invasion the situation can be rectified.

But Mashhadani’s fiery statement provides a true picture of the situation in front of our naked eyes. As conditions get worse and worse, neither Iraqi leaders nor the occupiers who protect them have a real plan on how to get Iraq out of its predicament.

Our parliament speaker likens our situation to a ship facing a tempest. If it is not going to survive, it will certainly sink. No one will survive. Everyone will drown: the passengers and the sailors.

Some might say the speaker is too pessimistic. But the man has plenty of reasons to sound the alarm.

Iraqi leaders, bogged down in sectarian strife and struggle over influence in a government with little or no authority in most parts of the country, deceive themselves by saying that the ground under their feet is firm.

We need someone to rattle them, to tell them that the ground on which they stand is fragile and shaky.

If ordinary citizens do not feel safe, there is no security for those leading them. Iraqis are being murdered on the kind of identity card they carry. Iraqis are being forced to move from one quarter to another and from one city to another in search of security which they do not find.

These are the roots of the equation in the new Iraq. The parliament speaker is saying nothing but the truth.

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