Iraqis to blame for collapse of Iraq

Like many, I've grown convinced that the administration has fumbled this war. I'm no fan of what George Bush has done, or Donald Rumsfeld, or the generals who should have resisted a flawed plan.
But for this one day, I'd like to talk about who is most responsible for Iraq being near collapse: the Iraqis.
Toward the end of the ground war in 2003, as our troops closed on Baghdad, I found myself thinking of Paris in 1945. Some of the most moving footage I have ever seen is of the French celebrating American troops as they marched down the Champs Elysees.
I expected an Iraqi version of that.
Instead, there was almost a week of chaotic looting. Then came an anti-American insurgency.
We pressed on anyway, spending billions on an Iraqi version of the Marshall Plan. In Europe, that plan regenerated vibrant economies. In Iraq, much of what we tried to reconstruct was ruined by violence, local corruption and more looting.
Has there ever been a case of one nation doing so much for another with so little gratitude? Perhaps that's the wrong word. Our soldiers never asked for applause. They just wanted partnership -- and not even that. They would have settled for simply not being targeted by the very people they were trying to help. Yet the targeting continues.
Unique problems
I understand there are unique problems in Iraq. Europe had a lineage of democracy that Iraq lacked. And by removing Saddam, we took the lid off a nest of hatreds. The White House should have seen those dangers, as I think the first President Bush did.
But this is about how the Iraqis failed us. And themselves.
You would think only good could come of freeing a people from dictatorship and rebuilding their schools and infrastructure. But the hard truth is that some peoples don't want peace, or even prosperity, not if it means coexistence. The last three years have shown that too many in Iraq wanted out from under Saddam's thumb not to embrace freedom, but to settle ancient scores.
Some would say it's unfair to expect Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis to just get along. Iraq is not America.
But in truth, America has far greater diversity -- we're a myriad of faiths and races that should have long since split us apart. But we understand coexistence. Iraqis don't.
It's true that their history and tribalism has made for rifts we can't understand. But let's at least remember this so we don't make another mistake with a foray into a similar country. In some peoples, the passion for fratricide is greater than the passion for peace.
I know that not all Iraqis feel that way. I was in Beirut in 1987 during the civil war there and saw that if 10 percent of the people want violence, they can destroy a society. But there seems to be a viciousness in Iraq that is far deeper. During the whole 15-year Lebanese civil war, an estimated 100,000 were killed, a terrible toll. But Iraq's own health minister has said 150,000 have died since this war began in 2003. The United Nations last week reported that 34,000 Iraqi civilians died violently last year alone. The other day, suicide bombers killed more than 70 students at a university. The targets are almost all defenseless innocents. What does that say?
Altruistic intentions
And now more than 3,000 American soldiers have been killed. And why? Because we're there to liberate, and offer security? Yes, we've made mistakes, but we're not conquerors, like Saddam's army was in Kuwait. Our intentions remain altruistic. Imagine the chaos if we leave. Yet they still want to drive us out. What kind of people are these?
Of course, thousands of good Iraqis are working with us, joining the local police and military. But we know many of those are untrustworthy. And the handoff is slow because the absentee rate among Iraqi security forces is high, and the discipline bad.
I wish I could say the problem is simply that there are a lot of bad guys over there. I fear it's deeper than that. The fact is that too much of this society prefers hatred over peace, and doesn't seem to care where it is taking them.
It's America's failure that we didn't anticipate that.
But we've done our best to bring hope.
It's Iraq's failure that its people didn't want it.
Patinkin writes for The Providence Journal. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.