"A Nest of Infernal Complexities"

I draw your attention to an article by Douglas Borer from yesterday's Christian Science Monitor. Titled "From Belfast to Baghdad - What Have We Learned?", it provides a sobering, if not depressing, historical perspective on our prospects for pacifying Iraq.

Professor Borer notes that it took Great Britain 38 years to get the warring parties in Northern Ireland to the conference table and achieve a peace agreement...and this despite the fact that "The warring parties were all Christians, spoke the same language, were racially indistinguishable, and were all part of the same great Western 'civilization'." And there were international players muddying the waters as well: members of the IRA used the Republic of Ireland as a safe haven and place of refuge, while sympathetic Irish Americans supplied the IRA with weapons, cash, and other support.

The lesson is that peace, if it can be achieved, can take a very long time, a great deal of patience, and a level of exhaustion on the part of the combatants. Consider this summary offered by Professor Borer:

"Northern Ireland was a tough and thorny situation , but in terms of relative complexity, it was a game of checkers compared to the three-dimensional chess board that Iraq has become. Indeed, what began as a simple, old-fashioned war between the US and Iraq has now evolved into a nest of infernal complexities that almost defies description. When the US does something to support or appease one party, it creates hostility in at least two of the other internal actors and one or more external players."

We've been in Iraq for four years. Britain tried to pacify Northern Ireland for almost forty years. Our next administration faces a crucial strategic decision: do we accept the "sunk costs" of the war to this point, withdraw, and let the Iraqis sort out the mess themselves, or do we decide that we, as a nation, have the patience to continue fighting in "a nest of infernal complexities" that could take decades to end?

My own view is that we should take the first option, distasteful though it may be. We have given the Iraqis an opportunity to build a new and better nation, but they've squandered it in a spasm of sectarian violence and the settling of scores. There's no point in continuing to facilitate the lunacy of those who happily kill hundreds of innocent people at a time.

But I'm not the president...I'm just another opinionated blogger who thinks we can spend our efforts, our treasure, and our blood in better causes.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo