Arab diplomat resigns after Iraq mission

[deadparrot]

CAIRO, Egypt - The Arab League sent Mokhtar Lamani to Iraq to persuade its bitterly divided Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders to make peace. He failed, and has now resigned, disillusioned and nearly drained of hope.

He says his mission was doomed by feeble support from the Arab governments that hired him, U.S. policies and the refusal of Iraq's leaders to work together.

"I am no longer going to stand and watch Iraqis' bodies being taken to the cemetery," he told The Associated Press in Cairo, where he returned from Baghdad last week to deliver his resignation to the Arab League.

His mission was the Arab world's belated effort to help solve the turmoil — a response to criticism from Iraq and the United States that Arabs were not doing enough. For much of the time since Saddam Hussein's fall nearly four years ago, Arab governments had shunned involvement, not wanting to imply approval of the U.S.-led invasion.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq_defeated_diplomat

[Tom Joad]

1. US policy is a success. from the stand point of its supporters.

Muslims killing Muslims... sounds good to Daniel Pipes, a key Bush advisor, (who was supported by anti-Arab hate groups like the ADL and AIPAC).

http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh03092006.html

Neocon Advocates Civil War in Iraq as "Strategic" Policy
Daniel Pipes Finds Comfort in Muslims Killing Muslims

By JOHN WALSH

One of the abiding myths about the War on Iraq is that the neocons were too stupid to realize that they would confront an unrelenting, indigenous resistance to their occupation of Iraq. Unwittingly, the story line goes, they led the U.S. into a conflict which has now produced a civil war. But this simply does not fit the facts. The neocons clearly anticipated such an outcome before they launched their war as Stephen Zunes documents in Antiwar.com:

"Top analysts in the CIA and State Department, as well as large numbers of Middle East experts, warned that a U.S. invasion of Iraq could result in a violent ethnic and sectarian conflict. Even some of the war's intellectual architects acknowledged as much: In a 1997 paper, prior to becoming major figures in the Bush foreign policy team, David Wurmser, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith predicted that a post-Saddam Iraq would likely be "ripped apart" by sectarianism and other cleavages but called on the United States to "expedite" such a collapse anyway."

Yet the line persists that the neocons had no idea what they were getting into. This cannot be correct as they think a lot about what they do and they plan carefully. Not only is that charge absurd on the face of it, but it is arrogant on the part of those who level it. And it is the worst political mistake possible ­ underestimating your adversary.

Now the neocons are beginning to advocate for civil war in Iraq quite openly. The clearest statement of this strategy as yet comes from pre-eminent neocon and ardent Zionist Daniel Pipes. In a recent piece in the Jerusalem Post, Pipes spills the beans. (more at link...)

[applegrove]

2. Like Bolton said (not verbatim) "they don't care if Iraq stays together or not".

[pampango]

3. I don't care if Iraq stays together, either.

What I wish for the people there is the maximum amount of freedom and control over their own lives. If that is in one country, with a federation of some sore, fine. If that is three countries, well, Iraq is a British construct to begin with. If the people feel no solidarity with each other, so be it.

[sam sarrha]

4. THIS ISNT A CIVIL WAR in Iraq.. Its a 1300 yr old Family Feud...LINK>

http://www.islamfortoday.com/shia.htm

http://www.islamfortoday.com/history.htm