How do you solve a problem like Iraq?

I sacrificed an hour of sleep last night to watch, with rapt fascination, Question Time (the panel, Have Your Say). I wasn’t exactly surprised to see John Bolton refuse to answer Tony Benn’s charges and SMIRK at him like a demented lemur.

Tony Benn was right to say the UN charter has been all but torn up by unilateral actions by the US and its ‘allies’. The audience member was right to say other members such as China were undermining the power of the UN by looking out for their own interests (as EVERY country clearly is, evidenced by the US in this case as well). Benazir Bhutto was very right to say the decision to go to war and what’s happened is in the PAST, and now what the world has to do now is help Iraq decide on its future.

Since I have no concept of what it’s like to fear for yourself and your family every single day, all I can do is rabbit on about ideas. Perhaps it’s time for the ‘allies’ to alter their role in Iraq, instead of clearing insurgents from villages (which reminds me of trying to remove community cats in Singapore and finding that new ones have moved in soon after) with guns to training villagers in civil defence. You know, fire service, emergency medical help, teacher training, additional training for doctors and nurses, counselling, that sort of thing. If a village collectively decides NO MORE to violence and is given the tools to help themselves, they will be able to help themselves.

From what I can gather, the reason insurgents and their ilk are allowed to hide in the village is (aside from fear) the attitude that the occupying forces are NOT their friends. Shooting innocent people (or your presence apparently causing innocent people to get blown up) wouldn’t really make you many friends. How about doing it one village at a time, motivating other villages to get started on their own civil defence preparedness?

This is not to say that it won’t still be a dangerous and not very nice place to live for a long time to come, but wouldn’t it set Iraqis on the right road? Maybe the individuals feel powerless, but if a village could be protected while they learn these civil defence skills, things could slowly start to improve on a permanent basis.

• 23 Mar 2007