Disclosure of inhuman treatment of prisoners in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison degrades US legitimacy in Iraq.
The same must be said for already faltering hopes for orderly transition to Iraqi self-governance and continuation of remarkable reconstruction achieved under challenging conditions.
Moderation of US ambitions for Iraq is in order.
Retreat is not. A difficult undertaking has just become more difficult. But the mission is not, as its opponents insist, futile.
Images shown around the world of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated and apparently tortured in Abu Ghraib amplify the challenge and limit what's possible.
It's bad enough that guards and possibly others in the prison violated international standards for the treatment of prisoners. The investigations now under way are much in order.
Whatever trials ensue, however, will have less effect than the incendiary evidence of Iraqis subjected to treatment especially loathsome in their culture.
That the humiliation came at the hands of US soldiers, including women, can be seen as affirmation of the worst suspicions ever-present in the Middle East about American views of Arabs and Muslims and about American intentions in Iraq.
It's disrespectful to imply, as many worried about this fiasco do, that all people of the Middle East will see misbehavior by a few as representative of the many.
Most Arabs and Muslims must know that US President George W. Bush spoke for most Americans by far when he called the Abu Ghraib misconduct "abhorrent."
That Arabs and Muslims in significant if comparatively small numbers wish death for Americans and other westerners, however, is a dreadful fact.
Abu Ghraib will fuel jihadist fanaticism and intensify peril. It makes clear that US priorities in Iraq must be elections and withdrawal—the sooner the better.
Future presence of westerners in Iraq needs the sanction of an elected government in Baghdad—even a messily elected one.
After Abu Ghraib, uninvited occupation can only foster antagonism, emboldening terrorist murderers and endangering expatriate workers and troops.
And the resulting bloodshed can only strain tensions between the Arab and Muslim world and the West, the very aim of Osama bin Laden's campaign of terror.
(Online Apr. 7, 2004; author's e-mail: [email protected])
