[Zzlist-deux] The Shame of Iraq Once More

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A new posting -
The Shame of Iraq Once More   - from Zoltan Zigedy is available at:
http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/


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*As the Sunni Jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham conquer
city after city in northern Iraq and as black-clad soldiers from Shiite
military muster to repel them, it is tempting to blame the chaos there on
ancient religious hatreds. But the strife in Iraq today is less the
mystifying product of of primordial grievances than the predictable result
of very modern power politics.*
  *The US shouldn't repeat the mistake made two decades ago, when a
generation of Western leaders explained away the wars that ripped
Yugoslavia apart as the result of primeval ethnic hatreds. Then as now,
such resignation is an easy way to avoid hard thinking. Hatreds Bred by
Power Politics, Daniel Benjamin (Wall Street Journal, June 28-29, 2014)*

Benjamin, a former US State Department coordinator, is right on both
counts: politics fundamentally drives the crisis in the Middle East and
simplistic, but convenient explanations for the catastrophic events
supplant any real analysis.

Apologists in both Parties and the supplicant media want to pass off the
blame to the victims of the quagmire that the US and its allies have
created in the Middle East. They insist that it is not a malignant foreign
policy designed to advance US corporate interests and install puppet
governments lurking behind the violence and chaos, but tribal and religious
animosities, disdain for “human rights,” and ignorance of “democratic”
values that thwart the “civilizing” mission of the US and the EU. Just as
US ruling elites evaded the lessons of defeat in Vietnam, their
twenty-first century counterparts revive the same chauvinistic,
self-serving explanations for the hatred and mass slaughter they perpetrate.

 To his credit, Benjamin insists on more nourishing explanations. As an
insider and participant in shaping US policy, he knows better; he knows
that interests-- economic and politic interests-- play the decisive role in
shaping the events now spinning out of control in Iraq. He concedes,
regarding “the demons of sectarianism,” that “[a]t key points, the US has
even *unintentionally* abetted them...” [My italics] While this confesses
far more than most of the US foreign policy commentariat wants to admit, it
falls far short of the truth....   *To continue the article, go to:
http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/ <http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/>*
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