BOTH DEMOCRATS AND BUSH OPPOSE IRAQ POPULAR SENTIMENT ON STATUS

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SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL - The fact that the Senate on
Wednesday voted in favor of a measure -- albeit a non-binding one --
that would divide Iraq into sectarian regions shows how out of touch our
well-meaning lawmakers are with what Iraqis, who make up what President
Bush repeatedly refers to as a sovereign, democratic nation, want.

Fortunately, there are those who know the hearts of Iraqis, such as Raed
Jarrar, a political analyst and consultant to the D.C.-based American
Friends Service Committee's Iraq Program. In a recent piece he co-wrote
for alternet.org, Jarrar said that those defining the civil war within
Iraq as a religious conflict alone miss the point. Iraq's war is over
control of the country and its energy supplies, not over Allah.

Jarrar writes, the "Bush administration, with the support of Congress,
has taken the same side as Iran's hardliners and the same side as the
Sunni fundamentalist group called al-Qaida in Iraq. All are working ...
against the wishes of a majority of Iraqis." Indeed, a poll conducted by
Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland
show that the majority of Iraqis (61 percent) want a stronger central
government, a wish supported even by Kurds, who already have their own
region.

Separatists in Iraq want an Islamic government, whereas the nationalists
call for a technocratic, centralized government.

The White House last week put on a show about disagreeing with the
Senate measure, but in reality, our government supports the separatists,
who control Iraq's Cabinet, not the nationalists, who want a unified
Iraq and aren't keen to pipe out their energy resources as the U.S. sees
fit, and who are frequently the targets of attacks by al-Qaida in Iraq.
The parties in the Cabinet are the same parties that appeared at the
London Conference in 2002, when the case for war on Iraq was being made.
In other words, nothing has changed since that time.

Until we truly understand why Iraqis are fighting, we have no hope in
helping bring about long-term peace required to bring the country back
together, allowing Iraqis to heal.

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