Will Truth Reign in the Kingdom of Fear?

An interesting article over at Powerline covering a talk by Sayyed Ayad Raouf Jamal al-Din at the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Jamal al-Din ran for parliament on the slate headed by former prime minister Alawi. This was a national unity slate, and it fared poorly in the election. But Jamal al-Din remains as insistent about the need for a unified Iraq as he is about the related concept of separation of religion and state. He talked little about Sunni vs. Shiite vs. Kurd and much about truth vs. fear and democracy vs. tyranny. And when he spoke of terrorism, he spoke of Islamic terrorism, not terrorism by any particular faction.

During the question period, I asked Jamal al-Din to say who is winning in Iraq now, truth or fear; democracy or tyranny. He answered by saying that right now Iraq is “a kingdom of fear.” Diana West and I later agreed that this answer is more meaningful and perhpas more disheartening than Dr. Alawi’s claim (which has become a mantra of the left in this country) that Iraq is in the middle of a civil war. In a civil war, there's an enemy army; in a kingdom of fear there are ghosts. An army can be easier to fight than ghosts.

But Jamal al-Din does not seem inordinately disheartened. He believes that the creation of a military and a police force with a national identity would enable the truth-fear, democracy-tyranny struggle to be played out in a clash between sectarian militias and the national army and police force. Though he did not say so, I felt that Jamal al-Din believes this struggle could go either way, and he clearly believes that much depends on the willingness of the U.S. to remain engaged.