GENOCIDE IN IRAQ….Genocide expert Samantha Power takes to the LA Times today to explain how to avoid genocide in Iraq:
Although it has a familiar and thus unsatisfying ring to it, the most viable long-term route to preventing mass atrocities is to use remaining U.S. leverage to bring about a political compromise that makes Iraqi Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds feel economically stable, physically secure and adequately represented in political structures.
….However, if this political pressure fails and U.S. forces remain unable to stave off an ever-widening civil war, the U.S. should go further and announce its willingness to assist in the voluntary transport and relocation of Iraqi civilians in peril. If Iraqis tell us that they would feel safer in religiously homogenous neighborhoods, and we lack the means to protect them where they are, we should support and protect them in their voluntary, peaceful evacuation — a means, one might say, to preempt genocide in advance of our departure.
As gruesome as this suggestion sounds, I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing more about it as time goes by and our options become ever more constrained. Brace yourself.
(Also: in an op-ed that praises Barack Obama’s withdrawal plan, shouldn’t Power be identified as a former staff member and current advisor to Obama? Just wondering.)
