What A Tangled War We Wage

I have refrained from writing about the Iraq War for quite some time, primarily because the conflict has taken on the air of a runaway train which most regret letting lose while simultaneously maintaining that an application of the brakes might bring new tragedies in its wake.

This is the paralysis a superpower incurs when it defines both shitting and getting off the pot as unrealistic options in the wake of an ill-advised incursion into an alien land.

Today, as I write, America's sons are dying in the defense of an Iraqi government dominated by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. How can we explain to American mothers why their sons are dying to defend the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution, created and funded by Iran? We can't. And that's not because American mothers are stupid.

Since John "So Obviously Qualified That We Shan't Question His Readiness" McCain is still foggy on the difference between Shi'a (Iran) and Sunni (al-Qaeda), how can we expect our leaders to grasp the even-more convoluted morass that exists within the Shi'a community itself?

Here's a brief primer: there are two main Shi'a camps in Iraq. The first is the group led by Muqtada al-Sadr, who represents the impoverished, largely illiterate masses of Shia Iraqis who survived the crucible of Saddam Hussein. Every male elder in Sadr's family, and several females, were tortured and executed by Saddam. But Sadr never fled.

The second camp, which we'll call the exile camp, consists of the highly educated Shi'a ulema, or intelligentsia, who fled to Iran during the 25 year nightmare of Saddam Hussein.

They are more urban, more sophisticated, and in the eyes of Iraqis like Sadr, more suspect, since they claimed refuge in Iran while Saddam was massacring their brothers. An Iran, let us not forget, that was at war with Iraq for nearly the entire 1980's. They returned to their homeland on the heels of the American invasion.

One concept that translates from American ghettos to Iraqi ones is that of street cred. You know, like 50 cent had, and what Hillary Clinton so clearly lusts after, as manifested by her inventing a story about being shot at by snipers.

She merely "misspoke" of course. And when I went to Israel in 2006, I wrestled a would-be suicide bomber to the ground as he tried to enter a nursery school. Oops, I misspoke.

Sadr has street cred because, even during the darkest days of Saddam, he never left. And, just as importantly, he has rejected the legitimacy of the American occupation since day one. In other words, he is an Iraqi nationalist, mistrusting both the Americans and the Iranian-backed Iraqi government.

Since our government harps incessantly about Iran's nefarious designs and their clear hostility to peace and liberty and puppies and ice cream, why are we killing Sadr's Iraqi nationalists, who resent Iran's influence, in the name of an Iraqi government beholden to our mortal enemy?

Good question, no? Why are we killing for Iran?

Why are we not backing Sadr, an Iraqi nationalist who would reject undue Iranian interference? Because he opposes all foreigners, not just Iranians. He doesn't want Iran running his country, and he....gasp....doesn't want American running his country, either. And, since he rejects the manifest goodness of the American military, he must be in league with Beelzebub. Therefore, we will destroy him, even if in doing so we only consolidate the power of our "real enemy", Iran.

There you have it. Americans are killing and dying for Iran's allies, targeting the one Shi'a leader (Sadr) who is uniquely Iraqi and uniquely legitimate among millions of Shi'a.

Tonight some American mother will get that knock on the door, which will echo through her brain until the day she dies. And she will know that her son died to protect Iran.

The most important thing about this recent cycle in Iraq is that it has nothing to do with terrorism. Nothing. It has nothing to do with al-Qaeda, and even less to do with "al-Qaea in Iraq", which has largely been rejected as nihilistic by the more nationalist strains of the Sunni insurgency.

People have been killing and dying in Mesopotamia for 10,000 years. They will continue to do so. And, despite our staggering and narcissistic delusions of self-importance, that killing will be neither our fault nor our responsibility nor our business. Unless, of course, we insist on choosing sides in each and every dispute, even when our direct interest is beyond opaque.

The picture of the child on the top of this post must remind us of this. In Iraq, the innocents pay the price, and though we are irreducibly invested in a narrative in which we are just as innocent as anyone else, we're not.

Because of our bloody blindness, innocents will die today in Iraq under American bombs. My bombs. Your bombs. And for what? Apparently, to make the world safe for Iran. After all, we want Iran to feel good and secure before we start bombing them.

Not only will we bomb them for "interfering in Iraq" with total lack of irony, but we will do so despite the fact that we're both supporting the same side. I'm not given to cliche, but this is the ultimate example of having to laugh so that you don't cry.