When Being Iraqi Trumps Being Sunni and What It Might Implicate

Christopher Hitchens (whom I might add I disagree with a substantial part of the time,) writing in Slate, has one exceedingly important thing to say about the state of affairs in Iraq today.

"We have had enough of this nonsense," said Sheik Ahmad Khanjar, the leader of the Albu Ali clan. "We don't accept that a non-Iraqi should try to enforce his control over Iraqis, regardless of their sect—whether Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs or Kurds." Ali Hussein Lifta, a local Shiite repairman, responded handsomely. "So many ties of friendship, marriage and compassion" connect people, he said. "We have become in fact part of the population here."

Khanjar is a Sunni, the decided minority of today's Iraq, even though under Sadaam they enjoyed authoritative rule. Hitchens, in this article, documents the rise of Sunnis against anti-Iraqi interests, before he adopts the lock-step position of Sunnis elsewhere. An important national identity is forming, and this is critical if Iraq is to succeed.

If all goes even reasonably well, and if a combination of elections and prosperity is enough to draw more mainstream Sunnis into politics and away from Baathist nostalgia, it will have been proved that Bin-Ladenism can be taken on—and openly defeated—in a major Middle Eastern country. And not just defeated but discredited. Humiliated. Is there anyone who does not think that this is a historic prize worth having? Worth fighting for, in fact?

I leave that thought with all those who have been advocating withdrawal, or taking a fatalistic attitude to an overrated "insurgency," or who hold the absurd belief that al-Qaida would have left Iraq alone if only we had done the same. If their advice had been followed, and the coalition had pulled out in 2004, the Zarqawi forces would have tried to take the credit, and their boast might even have been believed. This would have been a calamity of a global and epochal order. Now, however difficult and messy the rest of the transition, that at least will never be the outcome.

An incredibly important point, don't you think?

(h/t to Right Nation.)