Troubling Acts and Responses in Iraq

On Informed Comment, Juan Cole look at the disturbing events in Iraq. Events involving Iraqi Security Forces.

A good deal is going on as far as insurgents, Iranian fears, British pullouts, and so on. But their is also a need to keep a hand on what is happening in how this country is and will be governed, and how law enforcement will work.

Take the recent events with the Iraqi forces. They went in to grab a man they felt was a Sunni insurgent. This group was made up of Shia. They did not find him. They did find his wife. They took her in, accusing her of cooking for insurgents. Then the police gang-raped her.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite head of a Shiite government, at first said he would have a commission look into her charges. Then he reversed himself and accused the woman of lying and implying that she was put up to it by the Sunni insurgency. Marc Santora of the New York Times managed to interview the nurse who treated her, and found that Mrs. al-Janabi's story was corroborated.

This is our guy, Maliki...after Chalabi turned a dud. He looks to be covering for his group. Looks to still be choosing favorites. Looks to be leading a country in a nasty state.

If we stay, we prop this guy up, and his friends...and they have plans. And that's assuming things don't go to pot in spite of our work... If we go, things just go to pot, and people will fight.

It is important to realize that we aren't in some idealistic state, these are no Washingtons, Jeffersons, Lincolns, Bolivars...not at all.