This is the front cover of this morning's Independent. It carries an interview by the ever annoying Robert Fisk with Sunni insurgents in Iraq which says that they'll negotiate with the US if withdrawal is on the table.I find myself asking, by what authority and sovereignty can they negotiate? The entire thing seems to be predicated on the assumption that Sunni terrorists are legitimate political actors. They're not.
26 comments:
Mr Frisky is a menace
Yes Dizzy, it is not straight thinking. Iraq has a legitimate government and many Sunni's who want the Americans to stay.
having a gun does not make you right (though it can be persuasive.)
Oh grow up Dizzy
In Iraq the insurgents are about as 'legitimate political actors' as us. After all we invaded Iraqi on the basis of 'intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy' (Manning); against the legal advice of the foreign office; without UN endorsement; to achieve regime change.
This sort of nonsense has little to do with conflict resolution. Menachem Begin could blow up the King David Hotel and die a 'statesman' - if Israel had lost the war in 1948 he'd still be a 'murdering terrorist'. Margaret Thatcher had no issue with sharing tea with Pinochet although he was responsible for overthrowing a democratic government.
Sooner or later someone in Iraq will have to talk to the insurgents, unless you've got a brilliant idea for beating them which is more than anyone else has. And they know the next US president will be elected on a 'bring the boys home' ticket so they don't have to win just endure.
hmmmm
1: There is a legitimate Iraq government in Iraq voting for by the Iraqi people in their millions.
2: The Sunni terrorists have no democratic status in Iraq.
3: The Iraqi Government says it wants western troops to stay.
4: There was nothing illegitimate about the invasion of Iraq. It broke no law.
5: Try again
1) yes - so what - anyway can anyone prove it has a pulse.
2) neither did the IRA but the UK (under Labour & Tories) has recognised Gerry Adams as a political actor with whom it has to deal
3) Well as Western Troops are the only things keeping them alive they would wouldn't they. On the other hand opinion polls (leaving aside for the moment the mind-boggling concept of conducting an opinion poll in Iraq) indicate that that is not the view of the electorate some 60% of whom appear not only want them to go but approve of attacks on them.
4) that is a matter of opinion. the advice of the foreign office legal advisers (who ought to know) was that it would be without a second resolution; the AG thought it was open to challenge until Tony Blair pulled him off the fence. The question has never been resolved by the courts so we can both claim to be right.
5) Unless you believe that the insurgency can be defeated (without using methods that would start a regional war - eg nuking al-Anbar - and within the political patience of the US electorate - this presidency) then there are only two alternatives (however you dress them up): 1) cut and run or 2) negotiate. It is the political cost of cutting and running that will make (some) insurgents into legitimate political actors when the political will to continue the war runs out.
You are confusing democratic legitimacy with political legitimacy: democratic legitimacy is only one sort of political legitimacy. Otherwise we would have to say that organisations campaigning for democracy under dictatorships or totalitarian regime were also not legitimate political actors until their legitimacy had been proven in the very elections they were being denied. Such a Catch 22 is clearly a nonsense but a convenient argument for dictators.
Interesting, in one breath dismiss the democratic will of the people with "so what" and in the next support it because of a poll which you concede is probably bollocks.
Yay for intellectual idicoy!
It is the next US president not the will of the Iraqi people who will confer the status of 'legitimate political actor' on whomsoever he/she decides he/she needs to negotiate with (directly or indirectly) to get of Iraq with the minimum possible damage to US interests and face.
Not to face up to that is 'intellectual idicoy'.
The 'the democratic will of the [Iraqi] people', who certainly did not vote for civil war, has (sadly) very little to do with it: on the other hand 'the democratic will of the [American] people' in the next presidential election is likely to have quite a lot to do with it.
As to the current Iraqi 'government', the issue is not its political legitimacy but the blunt truth is that it was stillborn. Arguments about the legitimacy of the act of conception are therefore a tad pointless. It has no writ to run.
the US are not going to leave Iraq. I will put money on it.
To go or stay will, sooner or later, require an accomodation with with some (but not all) insurgents/militias - it is that accomodation that will create legitimate political actors
no it doesn't
When in seven years time an Iraqi
government, which contains former insurgents and has no democratic mandate but maintains order, is recognised by the US how else would you describe them?
that won't happen
easy answer.
But there are a fair number of ex-killers (and not so ex) without democratic mandates whose governments now sit round the table at the UN.
If we refuse to call them legitimate political actors that is just a semantic avoidance of reality.
bollocks. That says more about the moral bankruptcy of the UN than anything else.
"by what authority and sovereignty can they negotiate?"
The same authority that the US had when it chose to invade?
That would be US authority then. Hmmm don't think that would work. I do live the way this is always thrown around into anti-american response. It never ceases to amaze me the way peiople will happily apologise for terrorism when they are against America.
Christ, I really don't know where to begin with that post...
'moral bankruptcy of the UN than anything else.'
which is entirely besides the point - unless you just want a self-righteous whinge.
But lets take another example: Pinochet. Muderer, torturer, seized power through a bloody coup. Was he a 'legitimate political actor'? The blessed Margaret certainly seemed to think so. Maybe he's okay cos he was killing the enemies of democracy (even if they thought they were democrats). Then again I always thought she was morally bankrupt (Margaret Thatcher, milk snatcher)
'happily apologise for terrorism when they are against America'
Did you delete a comment I haven't seen? I don't recall anyone apologising for terrorism. To say that the US appears to show scant regard for international law when even its president has approvingly referred to cowboy justice is one thing; to approve of, or apologise for terrorist outrages, is something else entirely. Your comment has all the logic of accusing the pyschiatrist who diagnosed Peter Sutcliffe as a pyschopath of thereby apologising for his murderous acts.
1: Pinochet was a murderous dictator. So is Castro and so is Chavez. I have no qualms about calling them for what they are, left or right. He was useful during a war, period.
2: You didn't miss a post, it was inspired by the way in which the US was thrown in as a counter-argument, which is standrard practice in the "it's always americas fault" type argument, which is always standard fair on the subject of Iraq.
The effect is usally, as was being done, to make moral equivalence between the actions of a state with a dmeocratically elected leader, and the actions of terrorists murdering civilians with the intent of murdering civilian. The effect is a tacit apologism for people who, ironically, would just happily kill the people that are tacitly apologising for their actions.
Oh yes, and there is no such thing as international law. Law requires soveiregns to enforce it, where is the international soveriegn? Oh look.. there isn't one!
one other thing.. the Indy is the most anti-american newspaper in the UK. Just read it over time, no matter what happens, even if the US does something that it called for months before, it will criticise it. The same as it will criticise Israel under all circumsatnces, period.
If America ever did withdraw from Iraq in the near futue the Indy would compain about what it left behind. If it offered to help clean up from afar it would be accuses of neo-imperialism again. That is the default position it takes on everything. Just read it over time and its apparent.
"If you are intensely critical of the US, while tolerating homicidal enemies who condemn everything you previously claimed you are for - human rights, voting rights, gay rights, women's rights, porn - then you are a patriotic terrorist. If you talk about tolerance constantly - and hilariously tolerate genocide and suicide bombers because those actions undermine your more intimate opposition, the American right - then you are a patriotic terrorist."
New Trend On The Rise: The Patriotic Terrorist »
What a load of irrelevant b******t.
Strikes me that what is wrong with American foreign policy comes down to three naive and simplistic assumptions:
1) if you're not with us on this, you're our enemy
2) my enemy's enemy must be my friend
3) everybody else's interests coincide with the national interest of the USA.
So anyone who criticises them on anything is an anti-American apologist for terrorists.
No one in this thread has uttered a word of approval of, apology for, encouragement to those who commit terrorist outrages. Yet some f***wit is blabbering on about 'patriotic terrorists'. It would be truely pathetic if it didn't resonant with US foreign policy.
dude.. you can say bullshit you know. You can even say cunt if you like. No need for stars. I won't delete.
If you say Liverpool are better than Everton obviously I will delete though.
well Everton are definitely better at wearing blue shirts so no problem there
Having just finished weeping after watching Wales lose to Scotland, I think Everton could probably play Rugbi better than Wales as well.
Soggi! Soggi! Soggi!
Oh! Oh! Oh!
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