Opinion, Volume 8 number 10, October 2006, by Neal Matson
The Missionary Position: On Iraq
We are in a hole in Iraq and need to stop digging. Of course that won't happen until we have honest and intelligent leadership in Washington, but we should be considering peaceful exit strategies just the same.
"Blessed are the peacemakers" is an axiom given by my half-brother, Jesus (we have the same father). Many say, "God bless America", but how can anyone expect God to bless this warmongering country at this time? We need to stop our killing and work to be worthy of God's blessing. We need to get out of Iraq as soon as possible. And to do that we need to change our strategy.
We have overthrown Iraq's strongman, devastated its infrastructure, alienated its population, and enabled a civil war. Recent history clearly shows us that when a strong totalitarian government is removed or collapses, long-repressed ethnic and/or religious hatreds quickly rise to the surface and often lead to civil war. The collapse of European communism resulted in a decade of civil-breakup-wars in former Yugoslavia, and they're still fighting over Chechnya. When you take the lid off, violent social pressures are released.
Our followup to the decapitation of Iraq has been to try to impose a new western-style democratic lid on that country by force. That will not work. It's like trying to mix oil, water, and sand. No matter what we do, I believe that in the not-too-distant future there will effectively be three countries within the current borders of Iraq. Kurdistan, Sunnistan, and Shiistan (perhaps a part of Iran).
Remember, modern Iraq was created by the (then secret) Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 when France and Great Britain carved the Ottoman Empire up into spheres of colonial domination. Iraq's borders have remained much the same ever since. Modern Iraq is an artificially created country only ninety years old. Centuries older ethnic and religious differences certainly trump those more recent imperialistic mapmakers.
There are already some encouraging signs that the peoples of Iraq have begun heading in this natural direction. The Kurds are now flying the Kurdish flag, not the Iraqi flag, over their government buildings. News reports tell how individual Sunnis and Shiites are peacefully and legally swapping homes so they can live more safely in religiously homogeneous areas. This is the good news coming out of the war zone. Our government, our military, and even the United Nations need to encourage and assist the Iraqi peoples in determining the new borders of their new countries. That is our peaceful exit strategy to this obscene war. We could begin it today.
The major obstacle, other than Publican Party stone-headedness, is how to agreeably and equitably distribute Iraq's oil wealth among the three new countries. The solution is an Alaska-style, oil-revenue-based, permanent fund dividend for all current Iraqi citizens—Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. There would be no incentive to blow up the other guy's pipeline if it would directly effect your dividend or revenue for your own country. Details could be hammered out at a negotiating table rather than on a battlefield. God would bless that.
Obvious blessings abound for those of us who live here in glorious Alaska. Not the least of which, to us poorer folk at least, is our own PFD. Let's keep it permanent and growing. I want my grandchildren to keep receiving it. It pays a lot of bills and buys a lot of Christmas presents. Perhaps we should even officially declare the day the first PFDs go out each year as Jay Hammond Day. Public celebrations could include indigo-dyed hard-boiled eggs called "blue Jay Hammond eggs."
Some of us may spend our PFDs on liquor, gambling, or floozies while others waste it, but that is our God-given free will. God is not a dictator who forces us to do the right thing, but rather a father who hopes we choose to do what’s right. One right thing we can do is support Scott Kawasaki. His opponent in the next month's election wanted to end our Permanent Fund Dividend program and would not even vote to reinstate the longevity bonus so cruelly ripped from our seniors—not real blessing-worthy things.
May God bless Earth and all upon her, especially the peacemakers. That's my position, and I'm stickin' to it. | ||
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