Sunni and Shiite tribal militias struck violently in Baghdad and Basra against the occupation forces

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2006/11/rondinelli.html

Bush, Blair should have consulted history books before invading Iraq

By Dennis A. Rondinelli

Friday, November 17, 2006

Note to Editors:
Dennis A. Rondinelli is a senior research scholar at the Duke Center for International Development at Duke's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy.

Durham, NC -- Suppose that George W. Bush and Tony Blair could have seen clearly before the invasion the consequences of the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein, occupy Iraq and transform its government. What if they had uncovered many of the obstacles and problems U.S. and British military forces would encounter in attempting to quell the ensuing violence and restore stability?

Would the United States still have moved ahead so confidently, assuming that our troops would be greeted by admiring Iraqis who would unite to form a government that would be a model of democracy for the Middle East?

The real tragedy of our policy is that if the U.S. president and the British prime minister had simply read the history of the British occupation of Iraq in the last century, they would have discovered most of the complexities with which we now struggle.

The Bush administration needed to go no further than the Library of Congress online edition of the Federal Research Division's "Iraq: A Country Study" to learn of eerie similarities between the British Mandate and the current situation.

The experience of the British in Iraq from the 1920s to the late 1950s offers a haunting glimpse into many of the historical trends that shaped events almost a century later. When British Maj. Gen. Sir Stanley Maude led his forces into Baghdad in 1917 -- after Britain reached an agreement with France to divide the former Ottoman Empire into their own spheres of influence in the Middle East -- he, like current American leaders, assured the Iraqis that "our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies but as liberators."

Few Iraqis believed the promise or welcomed the occupiers. Almost immediately, Sunni and Shiite tribal militias struck violently in Baghdad and Basra against the occupation forces. The British dismissed and alienated -- and later reinstated -- the largely Sunni bureaucracy and left Shiites fearing subjugation. Kurds, hoping for independence, mobilized to protect themselves. The British created a provisional Iraqi government that was largely ineffective because it was so thoroughly distrusted by Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

1. The 1920's?

The 30's? The 40's?
Asking these guys to put things in a historical context is like, well, asking Deadeye Dic-k to look where he's shootin.'
But ** was a history major in college (nothing wrong with that, so was I) but what was he studying, the history of booze?

[NNN0LHI]

2. Sunni and Shiite Iraqis just can't seem to get along is all we hear

I wonder why that lie is so popular?

My guess it is wishful thinking by some.

Don