It's Time to Pull Out

No,
The blog title is not an adult film director's command. Under international agreement, the U.S is going to begin it's systematic withdrawal from Iraq. It's time to pull out. We now leave major cities and towns, and place their watch under the Iraqi army.

Riding around town on my Bike Friday, there's a lot more to think about than just finding a job. It's easy to become provincial, nay, self-centered, when job searching. But the world goes on around me. It's like that feeling when you have a vacation day and choose to stay in town. It feels like everyone should be on vacation. Why is there rush hour traffic? I'm on vacation!

When there is possible progress in Iraq, there is, to say the least, uncertainty with Iran. But it's mostly governments we battle, or media-driven perceptions. Not people. Yes, people are on the front lines; the soldiers, the rebels, the activists. Somehow, though, our government, our media, seems to inculcate in us those who we should view as the enemy; and those who are supposed allies. "The New Europe", Little Bush had coined some of the former eastern block nations as he turned his back on Germany and France. Quite a spin doctor. And before him, Clinton, he of the flaccid peace and diplomacy efforts that got a destroyer mangled in Yemen; the World Trade Center bombed (lest we forget in the wake of the larger tragedy on 9/11). So Iran looms as a shadow passing in the night, navy blue on black, barely discernible, largely unformed but fully targeted by our government. And I'm having reconciling problems.

Last night I went to the memorial service for my friend's wife's mother. The mother, and most in attendance, were persian--iranian. Warm, welcoming. The surviving husban, "bubba" as affectionately termed in farci, gracious to a fault this night and every time we've met. But dignified and humble, ever thankful to each and every person who came to pay respects.

There is no shadow looming in this room. There are no diplomatic breakdowns, no communication problems. The three speakers of the evening, the widower included, all spoke in farci. I understood not a word but understood it all. When the second speaker (an older iranian apparently of some high media and political importance) droned on for more than twenty minutes, the buffet food getting cold as two sterno cans ran out of fuel, I didn't need to know a word of farci to see the proverbial hook coming to wrangle him from center stage. It was time to eat, to commune as one people, to celebrate the life of a magnificent iranian woman who raised a beautiful persian daughter, who grew up to marry my good friend, a U.S. marine; he who refused to call her by her adopted american name, instead celebrating her heritage. And now we prepare for what--for war? Diplomatic sanctions against Iran? Let us all sit at the table and break bread together.