A Not So Lovely War

Editorial

Who could not have sympathy for Irish American mother Cindy Sheehan as she continues her lonely vigil outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas?

Sheehan lost her son Casey in Iraq and has maintained that his life was lost in vain. Casey Sheehan re-enlisted with the Army in August of 2003 even though he knew his unit would eventually be sent to Iraq.

He was killed in Sadr City on April 4 of last year. He was only 24 years old. Like all young Americans who have died there, he was a hero.

In an effort to dramatize the fact that she thinks her son died in vain, Cindy Sheehan is seeking a meeting in Crawford with President Bush, who has turned her down so far.

The steady drip drip of bad war news, including the Sheehan stand-off, has continued to impact this president, driving his approval numbers to their lowest levels yet. The Associated Press poll this week showed that only 42% of Americans believe he is doing a good job.

While there are other factors such as higher gas prices, questions about the economy and his attempts to remake Social Security, it is now apparent that the war in Iraq will be the central legacy of this president. Cindy Sheehan’s presence in Texas this August and the mounting death toll in Iraq will help ensure that.

How will that legacy be? It is a long way from the Mission Accomplished days when the tyrant Saddam had been ousted and Americans seemed almost on their way home. Not so fast, however.

One is reminded of what Mao Tse Tung stated when asked to comment on the success or otherwise of the French Revolution. “It’s still too early to say,” he said, speaking two centuries later.

We may not see the outworking of this move in Iraq fully for generations.

Equally, Harry Truman left office the most reviled president of his time with his approval ratings in the low 20’s, an unheard of number. Now, a generation or so later, he is considered the most popular president of his era. Predicting history’s verdict is an impossible art.

Where does the future lie for Bush? There is no question that Iraq will determine that.

His response to September 11 was masterful and rightly praised. No one can seriously quibble with his decision to remove the Taliban from Afghanistan. Iraq has become a different focal point, however.

Right now Iraq is inexorably moving towards partition and an American withdrawal. There is something peculiarly Irish about this solution given our own history.

In the south the Iranian government holds massive sway over the Shiite population and seems certain to control whatever form of government is arrived at. Shiite Iraq is already a de facto client state for the Iranians.

In the North the Kurds have semi-autonomy to begin with, which they will not relinquish. The Sunnis in the middle will battle for their own slice of sovereignty but it is Baghdad which will provide the greatest test, given its mixed ethnicity.

In hindsight there was a very good reason that the wise men around the first president Bush counseled him not to race to Baghdad and overthrow Saddam after the first gulf war. They argued that the Pandora’s box it would open up was too unpredictable — which is exactly what has happened now.

There was a poignant photograph in The New York Times on Sunday of a beautiful children’s playground in Baghdad built by American hands, in their efforts to help win over the local population. Alas, it is now deserted and overgrown, too dangerous an area for kids too ever venture out to.

That is the sad lesson of this and many wars. In the end nobody wins except the extremists.