Iraqis Have a Say

By Greg Scoblete
March 07, 2011

Don't Iraqis get credit for killing eachother?

While the focus of much of the world has been on Libya and Egypt, Iraq has had its own series of protests, which have elicited some less than benign responses from the Maliki government (or factions allied to the government) including the the detention and torture of journalists and attacks on protesters. Particularly disturbing has been the violence in Iraqi Kurdistan, frequently hailed as a model of democratic, pro-Western values.

Abe Greenwald contends that it's President Obama's fault:

'This would not be going on if the Obama administration had taken a minimal interest in the war that the U.S. will soon have devoted almost a decade to winning. Washington has seen Iraq through far more difficult challenges than this: heading off civil war, getting Maliki to turn his guns on Shiite militias, and handing security for cities over to Iraqis â?? to say nothing of pulling together an Iraqi parliamentary democracy.'

Notice what's missing from this equation: Iraqis. They are missing both as agents of their own salvation and as authors of the current violence and repression. But surely it's Iraqis - more than an American president - who are responsible for killing one another.

(AP Photo)

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