This story is really about the refugees of Iraq but there are some other parts of this
article that are really interesting and opened my eyes to how some of the Iraqis
think.
If you want to learn, read it all. But be warned: It is VERY long. I couldn't paste it
here because it was too long.
If we DO pull out soon, you may see Iraqis band together and fight Al Qaeda and
the Iranians in Iraq. And POSSIBLY beat them back. If not, they'll continue to fight
us. And it will never end. IMO...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/magazine/13refugees-t.html?bl=&_r=1&ei=5087%0A&en=7be25814514c44f5&ex=1179201600&oref=slogin&pagewanted=printAbu Ali had arrived several days before I met him, with two comrades who were wounded and could not get treatment in Iraq. “Our people here said they could help them,” he told me. The Americans had raided his home; he had not slept there for two years, stealing only occasional visits to see his family. I had been told that Abu Ali led a much publicized attack on a palace complex in Tikrit on the day Zalmay Khalilzad, then the American ambassador, attended a ceremony handing it over to the Iraqi Finance Ministry. Abu Ali confirmed this. “They expressed democracy with bullets against demonstrators,” he said of the Americans.
“I will keep fighting until the last American and Iranian leaves.” Abu Ali added that he anticipated a clash with Al Qaeda in the future as well.* * *
“We never had this sort of fighting before between Sunnis and Shiites,” Abdel Maliki said. “Saddam didn’t believe in Sunnis or Shiites; he was tribal.
Saddam didn’t put down the Shiite rebellion because they were Shiite but because it was an uprising. The soldiers who put down the Shiite uprising were Shiites." Abdel Maliki blamed Iran for the problems in Iraq. “It’s a military idea, to move the battle from your land to the enemy’s land,” he said, and Iran sought to confront the United States in Iraq.
“Iranian occupation is worse than American occupation. The only way is a military solution. Al Qaeda, the Shiite militias, the Iranian groups, have their own agenda but don’t want to solve their problems. We have to attack Al Qaeda and the militias.” * * *
Although General Hamdani said he thought that the Iraqi resistance should continue its fight, he saw a larger threat.
“These groups were established to fight the occupation but now think the danger from Iran is greater than from America,” he said. “American national interests and the resistance’s interests are the same. The U.S. did itself harm by demonizing the Iraqi resistance and anyone who deals with it. They have prevented the emergence of moderates who can sit and negotiate, and you see now, four years after the invasion, the strongest factions are Al Qaeda and not the nationalists.”
* * *
The Americans had just initiated their new security plan for Iraq, and Bazzaz was trying to be optimistic. “Everything must come to an end, and I don’t think this will go on forever,” he said. “We are not the first nation to get occupied by a foreign power or the first nation to fight among itself.” But while he struggled to be optimistic, he, too, still placed hopes in the resistance.
“If things get worse, then we, the people who are talking politically, will take the military option,” he said. “The Sunni Arab neighbors will have to support us. The worst is coming.”
