
 |
|
May 13, 2013
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Dec. 1, 2005
/ 29 Mar-Cheshvan, 5766
Pride propels Iraq toward an independent future
By
Jonathan Gurwitz
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
When American troops pulled Saddam Hussein from his hole two years ago, a Saudi newspaper editor expressed the conflicting emotions coursing through the Arab world.
"On the one hand, we are very happy, relieved that this man is out of the picture and he will not threaten us anymore," Khaled M. Batarfi told the New York Times. "On the other hand, to see him so humiliated he is an Arab president, after all."
Pride is a formidable force, even a deadly one, irrespective of culture. In the lands of Araby, a sense of injured pride permeates the landscape.
Twelve centuries ago, an Arab empire stretched from Persepolis to the gates of Paris. While Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, Arab scholars preserved the heritage of the classical world, Arab intellect advanced the frontiers of science and medicine and Arab genius created the glories of Granada and Baghdad.
This lost legacy has a calamitous grip on the Arab psyche. Where an illustrious empire once stood, a score of dictators and corrupt potentates now stumbles from disaster to disaster. By almost every meaningful measure economics, political systems, literacy, health care the Arab world rivals the outposts of the underdeveloped world.
A modern group of Arab scholars, working under the auspices of the United Nations, issued an Arab Human Development Report in 2002 detailing these failures. "The predominant characteristic of the current Arab reality," the report mutedly notes, "seems to be the existence of deeply rooted shortcomings in the Arab institutional structure."
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida earn sympathy, if not outright support, among otherwise sensible people across the region by hearkening to their glorious past and juxtaposing it with an inglorious present.
The leaders who preside atop this feeble institutional structure came together last week in Cairo. Their goal was to restore some of the dignity lost to the U.S.-led coalition that toppled and then captured a fraudulent symbol of Arab strength and then created in Iraq the conditions for a new political destiny.
Under the tent of reconciliation, the Arab League gathered Iraqis of all political, ethnic and confessional backgrounds. Their final statement shows the decrepit influence of traditional Arab vainglory. It condemns violence targeting Iraqi citizens and institutions. But, capitulating to the demands of Sunnis supported by their Arab League brethren, it also recognizes a "right of resistance," which in practical terms gives sanction to attacks against coalition forces.
Outside the Sunni establishment, few Iraqi leaders support this moral subterfuge. Massoud Barzani, regional president of Kurdistan, told his National Assembly, "We consider them as liberators," reports the Iraqi newspaper Al Mendhar.
More significant is the Cairo statement's call for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq. Not because, as some opponents of Iraq's liberation would have it, Iraqis want a return to the days before the United States allegedly "broke" their country, when Saddam's machines of torture were grinding out human carcasses and his security forces were filling mass graves.
They issued their call because of pride not in a lost past but, rather, in a hopeful future. In two weeks, Iraqis will go to the polls to do something almost completely unheard of in the Arab world: elect a permanent government in a freely contested, multiparty election.
A truly free and representative Iraqi government will not necessarily do things to the liking of policy-makers in Washington. But an Iraqi government either unwilling or unable to assert its sovereignty is not one for which Americans should sacrifice their lives. The joint statement represents a pivotal point in the evolution of an independent, democratic Iraq.
The Cairo statement, the trial of Saddam, the increasing role of Iraqi forces in securing their own country, elections, the contentious voices of democracy: Iraqis are liberating themselves. For that, the Iraqi people and the nations who helped them can be justifiably proud.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Jonathan Gurwitz, a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, is a co-founder and twice served as Director General of the Future Leaders of the Alliance program at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. In 1986 he was placed on the Foreign Service Register of the U.S. State Department.Comment by clicking here.
Jonathan Gurwitz Archives
© 2005, Jonathan Gurwitz
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|