Truffaut: The Mess

The Mess
By Serge Truffaut
Le Devoir

Tuesday 24 October 2006

When one pays attention to the development of the Iraq issue over the course of recent days, one has to wonder whether the mess has not taken possession of the White House. Between President Bush's contradictory statements, the rumbling discontent of American as well as British generals, the lesson taught by former Secretary of State James Baker about high level administration, and a month of October not yet over that promises to be one of the deadliest yet, the presidency projects the image of a dog trying to bite its own tail.

Let's start with the army. In barely cloaked terms, the American general in charge of American forces present in Iraq indicated that he had just begun an in-depth examination of the settled strategy on the subject. The main reason for this examination? The application of the vast plan conceived earlier this year for the pacification of Baghdad was a complete flop. A fact to note: all along during this episode that primarily concerns him, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has adopted a low profile.

Last week, you will remember, Baker intervened in public to criticize the way the White House has managed the issue. Since then, thanks to secrets whispered by classical Republicans such as Baker, we know that the moment the latter chose to formulate his assessment was obviously not innocently chosen. His goal? To benefit from the reversals predicted by the polls during the mid-term elections to get rid of the neo-conservatives and certain religious currents. To be plain, the Republican Old Guard wants to get in its revenge with a view to the 2008 presidential election.

Then, there was that initiative taken last Friday by - it must be emphasized - Sunni and Shiite religious leaders assembled within the Islamic Conference Organization. Called the Mecca Document, the text that they signed - negotiated in the absence of American representatives - proposes an amnesty that they deem the only suitable method for pacifying Iraq as well as a scheduled withdrawal for the troops of the American-British coalition.

Simultaneous with the gesture effected by the Islamic Conference Organization, the Times of London asserted that a delegation of Americans had also negotiated an amnesty agreement with the Sunnis without saying a word about it ... to the Iraqi government! We must say that relations between Washington and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are becoming ever more elastic. The reason? The latter is effectively delaying the disarmament of Shiite militias. Still worse, at the request of the young Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, he freed a cadre of his personal guard known to have massacred Sunnis.

Between the public discontents of senior officers, the torpedoes launched in the direction of the White House by old Republican mandarins, and everyone's competing initiatives, one cannot help but observe that a strategic as well as political change is under way. As we wait to know its content, let me highlight a significant renunciation: nobody anymore mentions the establishment of ... democracy!



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Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102406H.shtml