There is a very revealing scene in Lawrence of Arabia. The Arab forces, under Lawrence’s leadership, have taken Damascas ahead of the British. They own the city, but they now own all the responsibilities of making it work. And they can’t. And they won’t. Every problem is met with accusations of how some other tribe is responsible for making something operate properly, something required to make something else function. And there is some manual labor involved in many of these functions. Certain tribes are too good to engage in manual labor.
I had expected Iraq to not repeat this. The Iraqis are better-educated than those desert tribesmen of 1918. They also have a society which has functioned and operated those things in the past. But where their society has the know-how, their culture is still that of those Arabs who took Damascas.
It is a culture built on familial and tribal ties, where negotiation is the order of the day. It seems to be the major sport of the Arab world. The best negotiator wins.
This is the issue in Najaf. American forces could easily take out Sadr. But the US is no longer in charge. Our forces serve at the discretion of the Iraqis, and do not act without approval. And the Iraqis are none too eager to take him out, especially if they must allow infidels into Ali’s shrine. So, they negotiate.
The only thing Sadr has to offer is the shrine itself. That is his hole card. And he will play it as long as possible. His status as the son and grandson of two of Iraq’s most revered Imams gives him legitimacy within the culture, although nobody seems to take him seriously as an individual. He is a non-entity playing off the family name. But the family name means everything in the Arab culture.
So we continue to follow the mantra “Diplomacy is the answer.” It’s an Arab tradition Lawrence himself walked away from.
***UPDATE***
Alex at wanderingmind adds his own to this. (Trackback didn’t link for some reason!?)
What puzzles me is how many sophisticated and intelligent people fall for “cheat and retreat” every time. Negotiating in these circumstances is like Charlie Brown running up to kick the football Lucy is holding.
Comment by Bob M — August 20, 2004 @ 7:34 am
Tactics and Morality
What is the greater evil– the perpetration of evil or the denial of evil, despite it’s obvious presence?
Trackback by Wandering Mind — September 28, 2004 @ 2:58 pm