Vincent Bugliosi's book on the O.J. trial was pretty hard on Marcia Clark. According to Bugliosi, Marcia placed a lot of reliance on O.J.'s prior assault or assaults on Nicole, which - - as truly horrifying and over the top as they may have seemed to her - - were NBD to the largely female, black members of the jury.
It seems to me that something like that is playing itself out in Iraq today - - Saddam, the torturer, the murderer, Saddam the suppressor of free speech and free elections and civil rights - - is somehow not viewed with the same sense of horror and repugnance in his own country as he would be in the U.S.A. In effect, in expecting the Iraqi people to reject what Saddam stood for and support democracy instead, (assuming, for the sake of argument, that that is really what the American policy is all about in Iraq) the American people are as foolish in their own way about Iraq as Marcia Clark was about her jury.
It should be obvious by now that the Sunni people are going to reject any solution to the constitutional crisis of Iraq that does not give them more or less the same degree of disproportionate power that they had under Saddam Hussein, and further that they have the firepower and the resolution and the support to frustrate any and all alternative solutions. Similarly, the Shi'a are not going to back down from their new-found ability to dominate the country under tthe rules of a "majority wins" "democratic" government. Stability is going to come, if at all, when one of the two competing sides so completely whips the other that the loser is forced into pretty much the same box that the Shi'a occupied under Saddam.
Frankly, the U.S. choices boil down to supporting the Sunni, effectively replacing the old Ba'athist regime with a new regime and a new Saddam if they "win" - - or supporting the Shi'a, and winding up with a government which will always be to a greater or lesser degree dependent on Iranian goodwill. If they win.
The real catch was in the "if they win." The fact is, they can't kill enough of the fighters on either side so the struggle could tie them up for the next decade at least. They couldn't subdue Viet Nam, admittedly a tougher foe, in ten. They simply cannot afford a long haul. The logical solution - - withdrawal - - is unacceptable simply because it paints a clear picture of failure and "loser" on the "President" who so often assured the American people that regardless of the actual facts they were seeing every night on their TV screens, things were really going well in Iraq, steady progress was being made, just "not as fast" as America had hoped.
It's too bad it is not a chess game. In chess, the player who can see that his position is hopeless will simply concede defeat and tip over his king. Too bad there's no one in America with the power and the prestige to call the game over for the country and tip over Mr. Bush.
