The Forever War Post 5

Initially, the American backed democratic parliament in Iraq had a plausible structure. Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, the supreme Shiite religious authority, was at the center of this parliament. It was through his influence that the Shiite majority would gain dominance in Iraq and lead the country. With Sistani’s support of the American political project, the Shiite Iraqis would be able to become legitimate leaders of the country. Then, Muqtada al-Sadr, an Iraqi who had wanted to join the Shiite exiled leaders and the Americans but was refused, called for an uprising against the new government. A year after the Americans had arrived and only a short time after the new government had been installed, Muqtada was able to gain control of key places in the country. With his attack, the new Iraqi police and army (the backbone of the new state) melted away. The country disintegrated into civil war as Iraqis began to fight their own people.

The Americans were essentially powerless to stop the fighting. It was impossible to separate the insurgents from the ordinary civilians as they were now essentially the same thing. Additionally, the nature of the Iraqi people hindered the Americans. The Iraqi people discovered that they could fool the Americans into thinking that the supported their political aims while still maintaining their own agenda. Chalabi, a powerful exiled Iraqi, had played a significant role in encouraging the United States to go to war with Iraq. It was Chalabi who had initially assured the Americans that Saddam Hussein was building nuclear weapons in Iraq. As the situation in Iraq imploded and no nuclear weapons showed up the United States disregarded Chalabi. Chalabi then returned to Iraq to run for a seat on the parliament. In his campaign he stated that Americans, while getting rid of Saddam, did not liberate Iraq. He continued on to state that it is now up to the Iraqi people to take control of their own country. As Filkins referred to him, Chalabi was a gamesman, exile, idealist, and fraud. Essentially, “Chalabi was Iraq” (257). Chalabi represents a specific example that stands for all of the citizens of Iraq. It was easy for them to gain support and trust from the Americans while still maintaining their own goals.

The American soldiers were authorized to give money to Iraqi civilians for projects such as schools, roads, and irrigation citizens. Filkins details how ordinary civilians understood that to get money from the American soldiers the needed to act in a certain way around them. However, once Filkins was able to talk to these people alone they revealed their anti-American tendencies. Even Filkins was taken advantage of by some of the Iraqi people he hired to bring him information. The language barrier alone contributed to an ability to trick Americans, as Iraqi people could say one thing in English and another in Arabic. What was most interesting to me was that some of the Americans were aware that the Iraqi people were double-crossing them, but there was essentially nothing they could do about it. The Americans had to do something to show that they were making a difference in the country and this included building new projects. The Americans essentially chose to ignore the duplicity of the Iraqi people and considered only that which supported their democratic aims.