Secretary of State Rex Tillerson thinks that it is time for
the Iranian militias to leave Iraq. “Iranian militias that are in Iraq, now
that the fight against Daesh and ISIS is coming to a close, those militias need
to go home,” he said on Sunday. “Any foreign fighters in Iraq need to go home
and allow the Iraqi people to regain control of areas that had been overtaken
by ISIS.” [1]
That sounds reasonable. There’s a problem though: the
fighters are already home. They’re Iraqis!
Unsurprisingly, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi took
exception to Secretary Tillerson’s remarks. “Members of the militias are Iraqi
patriots who ‘have sacrificed greatly to defend their country,’ Mr. Abadi’s
statement said. ‘No side has the right to intervene in Iraq’s affairs or decide
what Iraqis should do.’”
Of course, the prime minister is correct. The American secretary
of state shouldn’t suggest that Iraqi citizens leave their own country.
Now there is the point to be made that perhaps the prime minister
should improve his sense of humor. After all, it is obvious that Secretary
Tillerson thought he was talking about Iranians. On the other hand, maybe the
fact that our secretary of state didn’t bother to properly inform himself
before making such a pronouncement makes him as nervous as it should make
Americans.
On Mr. Tillerson’s behalf, however, it should be pointed out
that a “top Iranian commander, Maj. Gen. Qassam Suleimani, has advised the
militias inside Iraq, prompting some Iraqi lawmakers to describe them as an arm
of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps.” That’s not the same thing as being
Iranians, of course, and the secretary’s aides “later tried to clarify his
remarks as only meaning that Iraq’s military needed a unified chain of command…,”
manifesting awareness of the previous inaccuracy.
But we shouldn’t single out Secretary Tillerson. He is
hardly the first of Americans in high places to misunderstand the situation in
Iraq. The majority of Iraqis are Shi’a Muslims. [2]
It borders on Iran, which is 90% to 95% Shi’a Muslim. [3]
In 2003 the United States, for no reason, invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein
[4], who had policies
that favored Sunni Muslims, and now we’re concerned that Iran has too much
influence with Iraq. This is a level of fecklessness that couldn’t be dreamed
up by a fiction writer, and will provide no small amount of amusement for
history students in the ensuing centuries.
We have to think of a better way to select our national
leadership.
