Forget the oil, the UN should take over in Iraq

here's a perspective i will bet doesn't make it into u.s. media...

(Yasar Qatarneh, director of the Regional Center on Conflict Prevention in Amman, Jordan, talks to Spiegel Online...)

After taking over both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the Democrats have publicly discussed reinstituting an oversight committee and starting investigations into defense spending. They have also hinted at investigations into the Bush Administration's conduct of the war. All of this will make it hard to sustain a "stay the course" policy in Iraq. Against this background, I believe that Iraq is a case for the United Nations, with full and unrestricted backing from the European Union. The UN has to take over the country. Such a huge undertaking would involve giving Iraq a similar status to Kosovo. Iraq's sovereignty would have to be put temporarily into the hands of the international community.

so, how does qatarneh see the mess in iraq...?

The real reason for the violence is that the Bush Administration never defined a realistic and achievable set of military goals in the Middle East in general or in Iraq in particular. Its original political goal -- that of establishing a unified, pro-American Iraq that would sign favorable oil contracts with the US, would ally with Israel, and would form a springboard for further US pressure on Iran and Syria -- proved to be completely unrealistic. The inability of the neoconservatives in Washington to let go of those objectives is the biggest problem we have in Iraq and the Middle East. That's where the violence comes from. The imperial ambitions of the current administration have to come to an end.

why is it that those outside of the u.s. can see things so clearly while we sit here sinking in media muddle and government spin...?

Submit To Propeller
Tweet