What Bremer Got Wrong in Iraq

[sabra]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051501322.html

By Nir Rosen
Wednesday, May 16, 2007; 12:00 AM


I arrived in Iraq before L. Paul Bremer arrived in May 2003 and stayed on long after his ignominious and furtive departure in June 2004 -- long enough to see the tragic consequences of his policies in Iraq. So I was disappointed by the indignant lack of repentance on full display in his Outlook article on Sunday.

In it, the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority argues that he "was absolutely right to strip away the apparatus of a particularly odious tyranny," including the Baath Party and the Iraqi army. He complains about "critics who've never spent time in Iraq" and "don't understand its complexities." But Bremer himself never understood Iraq, knew no Arabic, had no experience in the Middle East and made no effort to educate himself -- as his statements clearly show.

Time and again, he refers to "the formerly ruling Sunnis," "rank-and-file Sunnis," "the old Sunni regime," "responsible Sunnis." This obsession with sects informed the U.S. approach to Iraq from day one of the occupation, but it was not how Iraqis saw themselves -- at least, not until very recently. Iraqis were not primarily Sunnis or Shiites; they were Iraqis first, and their sectarian identities did not become politicized until the Americans occupied their country, treating Sunnis as the bad guys and Shiites as the good guys. There were no blocs of "Sunni Iraqis" or "Shiite Iraqis" before the war, just like there was no "Sunni Triangle" or "Shiite South" until the Americans imposed ethnic and sectarian identities onto Iraq's regions.

...

Bremer claims that Hussein "modeled his regime after Adolf Hitler's" and compares the Baath Party to the Nazi Party. Set aside the desperation of the debater who reaches immediately for the Nazi analogy and remember that there is no mention of such "modeling" in any of the copious literature about Iraq. This ludicrous Nazi analogy permeates the entire article; it also permeated the proconsul's time in Baghdad, when Bremer imagined himself de-Nazifying postwar Germany, saving the Jews (the Shiites) from the Nazis (those evil Sunnis).

This thoughtless comparison is one of the main reasons why he performed so horribly in Iraq. (Remember, most Baath Party members were Shiites; so in Bremer's analogy, I suppose most of the Iraqi "Nazis" would be "Jews.")

[kenny blankenship]

1. If only he had implemented a flat tax, unshackling entrepreneurs and industry!

Iraq would be the libertarian New Jerusalem today. Then again, maybe it is and we are prevented from knowing about it by the Liberal Media News Filter.

[Demeter]

2. Whereas the List of What Bremer Did Right Looks Like:

(crickets chirping)

[panader0]

3. "You're did a heck of a job there Paulie"

[bemildred]

4. Bremer is an idiot.

To quote Dylan, "it's a wonder that ya still know how to breathe." Criticizing the endless stupitidities that issue from his flapping gums is a pointless and thankless task, there is zero chance that he will pay attention. In the meantime, the results of his "work" speak for themselves. He has just climbed on the "it had nothing to do with me" bandwagon along with Tenet, Wolfowitz, Perle, and the rest of the endless string of parasites that once fed off this administration, and who are now looking for new hosts.

[Bravo Zulu]

5. What Bremer Got Wrong in Iraq

Assuming that he got something right!