Falluja and Tikrit

Baseball is a nice distraction from medical adventures, and when it's time for a distraction from baseball -- for instance, during a five-game losing streak -- the Middle East is a reliable reminder of what actual bad news is.

I've been watching the recent news from Falluja, and actually it's about as good as news from Falluja gets.  The Iraqi army with U.S. air support has re-re-liberated the heart of the city, it's more intact (or at least less of a pile of rubble) than Ramadi after its re-re-liberation. and Iranian-backed militias are taking a lower-profile role than they did during the re-re-liberation of Tikrit. After all those liberations, and that time living under the lunatics of ISIL, and the return of a fragmented government swayed by Iran, the residents of Falluja, Ramadi and Tikrit can be forgiven if they do not celebrate the latest liberation with wild enthusiasm. Good news is all relative.

During my first assignment to Iraq (words that send my daughters looking for something interesting on their phones) I arrived in Tikrit in January 2004 on detail from the State Department to DoD's Coalition Provisional Authority. Security was dicey, but there was reason to believe the situation would get better. We had recently captured Saddam, we were meeting regularly with local sheikhs and politicians to talk about elections and economic development, and we were rebuilding schools, power plants and bridges. We helped organize a town hall meeting where Tikritis had a lively discussion about democracy and human rights -- in the middle of Saddam's hometown.  We traveled throughout Salah ad-Din province, including a memorable outing to Samarra to visit the archaeological sites and join local notables for an al-fresco banquet of grilled fish along the banks of the Tigris.

Dinner in Samarra, when such things were possible.

By May of 2004, the Mahdi Army was on the rampage in Sadr City and points south, U.S. Marines were slogging into Falluja to do battle with the insurgents who killed and mutilated four Blackwater contractors, and Abu Ghraib photos were everywhere on the internet. Samarra was no longer safe for a picnic.

But things in Tikrit weren't all that bad. I remember a particular conversation with a Tikriti politician who noted that Tikritis had mostly chosen to work with the U.S. occupation, or at least stay out of the way, while Falluja residents had supported the insurgency. He pointed to the result -- Falluja was in a constant state of warfare, Tikrit was on the way back to normal. Even then, there was reason to believe things would get better.

He's now dead, killed from what I heard at a roadblock a few years later. Others we worked with are still around and still working to get to normal. And perhaps they will. I read that Tikrit University has reopened, although I also read that ISIL recently blew up power transmission towers near Tikrit, and the long shadow of Iran remains. Sectarian tension continues to rise.

If that is the best we can hope for now for Falluja, and eventually Mosul and other ISIL-controlled areas in Iraq, it is at least better than life under psychopathic slavers. I do not know what lessons to draw from that for life in less catastrophic parts of the world, other than what seems hard, tragic and unfair in one place is just another day elsewhere. And a relative bit of good news is cause for at least a relative bit of hope.

Saddam's hidey hole, during happier(?) times in Iraq.