Deja vu

" They are making such a horrible muddle of the Near East. I confidently anticipate that it will be much worse than it was before the war." A frase e de Gertrude Bell, de 1919, a proposito da ocupacao do Iraque feita pelos britanicos ate 1958. (Este computador nao tem acentos!).

Vale a pena ler este artigo na Harpers, de Karl E. Meyer, que estabelece um paralelo historico entre este periodo da historia do Iraque e a actual situacao. Termina dizendo: "The United States is not bound by destiny to fail in Iraq. But to repeat British strategies and expect better results is the essence of folly. Here is what we know: That vengeance will be the price of granting Iraq sham independence, that protracted occupation and embedded bases breed certain hatred, and that showing a decent respect for Islamic culture, and doing so conspicuously, is the vital precondition for a successful exit from the present morass. That is the promise of history."