Is the U.S. Congress trampling on the rights of Iraqi leaders? According to this tongue-in-cheek op-ed article from Iraq’s Azzaman newspaper, the only sovereignty that Iraqi officials have left is to force people to listen to their car horns, while all the real decisions involving nationhood are made on Capital Hill.
“The vote in Congress to divide Iraq is the final proof that the political process brought about by elections, a new Constitution and this country’s leaders has been thrown onto the dung heap.”
By Fatih Abdulsalam
Translated By James Jacobson and Nicolas Dagher
September 26, 2007
Iraq – Azzaman – Original Article (Arabic)
The vote in Congress to divide Iraq [the Biden Amendment] is the final proof that the political process brought about by elections, a new Constitution and this country’s leaders has been thrown onto the dung heap. It doesn’t matter whether it was binding or not. If Iraq were an independent, sovereign nation, even a country the size of the United States wouldn’t dare discuss the details of dividing it.
What would happen if the French National Assembly drew up plans for dividing Morocco, Algiers or Lebanon? Next to me there’s an editorial from Egypt’s Al-Ahram newspaper, saying that Cairo rejects any American intervention in its internal affairs, after Washington demanded speedier trials for independent news editors there.
In Iraq, public officials are glad to vote on dividing their country (isn’t it they that are the real enemies?), since they want to ensure their own safety if plans to unite the Iraq fail – assuming of course that they ever really intended to unite the nation.
Congress and the U.S. Administration behave as though Iraq is a country that belongs completely to them – as though it’s a good deed for them to use some of their political capital to deal so dismissively with Iraq [voting to partition the country]. This after five years of internecine warfare failed to accomplish America’s military mission and its hand-picked crew completely failed in its attempt to administer the country. Perhaps America’s biggest accomplishment has been the construction of the largest American Embassy in the world, on land where a Republican Palace once stood.
The vote today in Washington is about the division of Iraq … tomorrow’s may be about more difficult things, or perhaps easier ones. But whether the issues are difficult or not, we know where the decision will be taken. Things have become clear now … things will be decided during the next vote in Congress, and the controversy over Iraq’s sovereignty will be over; it has become clear where Arab states who intend to send ambassadors should present their credentials.
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