Moment of Truth
With an interim constitution, Iraqis inch closer to gaining control of their shattered nation. What happens after that is anyone's guess
BAGHDAD--For Iraq, it shall be "freedom at midnight" on June 30: Ready or not, Iraqis will have to lay claim to the sovereignty of their country. Paul Bremer, the de facto high commissioner of the land, will have left that day. There shall be an American military presence in Baghdad, but it will be deployed in eight big bases outside the city. There may or may not be a "status of forces agreement" between the Americans and the Iraqis, but the restoration of sovereignty will have been well underway. The scapegoating onto America and its soldiers and administrators of everything under the Iraqi sun would have to begin to yield. Iraqis will have a chance to show what the wages of freedom shall be.
Men and women are never given overmuch to foresight. There is no sure way of knowing whether the American leaders who prosecuted this Iraqi war would have still done it had they known what awaited them in that difficult land. As Year 2 of the American interlude in Iraq approaches, it is too late for such second thoughts, and it is idle to debate whether this is a war of necessity or of choice. A kind of "imperial burden" came with this war. The pride of the Iraqis and the political correctness of the Americans often come together to paper over this uncomfortable fact, for the age of empire is done and over with. But venture into Iraq, and the facts of this Iraqi dependence are everywhere. "Rifle in one hand, wrench in the other," is the way Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, described his mission and that of his soldiers during a briefing at his headquarters in Mosul early last month. There was combat to begin with, and there were insurgents from the ranks of the old regime and jihadists who crossed into Iraq eager to strike at Americans, but the men and women of the 101st Airborne had repaired potholes and painted school walls and opened clinics. Their commander, a Renaissance man with a Ph.D. in international relations from
Princeton University, had even done his own call-in show, and the local politicians had begun to emulate him. On the outskirts of the city, this command had built a small housing compound with a very American name, the Village of Hope.
Petraeus was particularly proud of this project. As his tour of duty was drawing to a close, he took Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and a group of reporters traveling with him to that village. It was a cluster of 18 homes, given to a group of lucky families drawn from all Mosul's communities. The gift was given with the justice of Solomon: Of the 18 families, eight were Arabs, six were Kurds, two were Turkmen, one was Chaldean, and the other Assyrian. For Petraeus and Wolfowitz, the ribbon-cutting ceremony was something they clearly savored. The Iraqis receiving certificates to their homes were earnest and grateful, dressed in their best: Their children shook hands with the American dignitaries with the shyness and the good manners of the traditional culture of this world. Granted, this was a small patch of peace, and this command had lost 60 of its people in Mosul and its outskirts. But in Petraeus, this place had a benevolent foreign ruler: Think of him as David Pasha of Mosul. He moved about the municipality and the police station with ease and good humor--an approachable symbol of power. But the outsider's justice is always burdened with its foreignness. A people in need take it and bemoan it at the same time.
advertisement
