BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 28 — Senior Shiite politicians said today that the American ambassador has told Shiite officials to inform the Iraqi prime minister that President Bush does not want him to remain the country's leader in the next government.
It is the first time the Americans have directly intervened in the furious debate over the country's top job, the politicians said, and it is inflaming tensions between the Americans and some Shiite leaders.
The ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the head of the main Shiite political bloc at a meeting last Saturday to pass a "personal message from President Bush" on to the prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who the Shiites insist should stay in his post for four more years, said Redha Jowad Taki, a Shiite politician and member of Parliament who was at the meeting.
Ambassador Khalilzad said that President Bush "doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept" Mr. Jaafari to be the next prime minister, according to Mr. Taki, a senior aide to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Shiite bloc. It was the first "clear and direct message" from the Americans on the issue of the candidate for prime minister, Mr. Taki said.
An American Embassy spokeswoman confirmed that Mr. Khalilzad and Mr. Hakim had met, but declined to comment directly on what they had spoken about.
I don't know what to say about this, but that if this is how the Bush administration defines a democratically elected Iraqi government, then perhaps Bush should step down as president since almost 67 percent of the American public "doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept" George Bush's latest job performance as President. Where does the White House get off in believing they can decide who will be Iraq's top leaders? And if one Iraqi leader is not toeing the White House's political ideology, then he can be replaced by another Iraqi leader? When I read this story, I think back to the early days of Vietnam, and the Kennedy administration's frustration with the Ngo Dinh Diem government in South Vietnam. In South Vietnam, the Roman Catholic administration that comprised the Diem government was staging a major crackdown against the Buddhist monks, who were protesting against the government's suppressive policies. This resulted in several publicized events of Buddhist monks setting fire to themselves. The problem in South Vietnam was that while Diem and his administration was Roman Catholic, much of South Vietnam was Buddhist. The Kennedy administration tried to pressure Diem in easing up on his crackdown, but to no avail. It was then on November 1, 1963, with the support of the Kennedy administration, that the South Vietnamese military staged a military coup in overthrowing and killing Diem. Ever since the South Vietnamese generals had taken control of South Vietnam from Diem, they were unable to effectively govern South Vietnam, leading to further military coups and countercoups. And as the South Vietnamese generals proved themselves ineffective in ruling the country, President Lyndon Johnson sent American forces in to fight the civil war that was raging in Vietnam.
We certainly know what the outcome was in the Vietnam War.
Now we come to Iraq. We have an Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who was selected by the Iraqi people through a parlimentary election, while their country is under an American occupation. And now that al-Jaafari is embarking on policies that the Bush administration does not find satisfactory, is Bush willing to use the U.S. power to replace al-Jaafari? How is that going to reflect on the Iraqi people, knowing that their democratic leaders are puppets to the White House? Of course, they probably already know their leaders are puppets, but to have such puppets being replaced at the whim of George Bush? You can bet that replacing al-Jaafari isn't going to help the U.S. military in its war against the Iraqi insurgents--such a replacement of al_Jaafari could even help the insurgency in recruiting fighters from the Iraqi population. It is amazing how the Bush administration takes little stock in the historical lessons of Vietnam, and how trying to exert your will against another nation's sovereign government, can result in disaster.
No comments:
Post a Comment