Hope glimmers. I was talking to my Iraqi friend today and asking about how Baghdadis feel now that Zarqawi is dead and Bush came to visit.
This man comments all the time that he has never seen anything in Iraq but war. He’s jaded about hopes for peace. Today he was more hopeful than I’ve ever seen him. With Zarqawi’s death and talks about U.S. troop withdrawals, he feels that Baghdadis see forward momentum for their country.
Jihadis, he told me, can be reasoned with if they think the infidels will soon be leaving. Maliki, he believes, is a decisive man who could get things done. He also believes that the Iraqi government, in its entirety, is only serving in order to embezzle money. He has an attitude common to Iraqis I have met. They often expect the worst from people. Who can blame them?
Heat shimmers. Someone told me about two months ago that the heat was coming. The seasoned teller of tall tales was adamant that once the temperature rose above 120 degrees, I wouldn’t feel any difference. A day at 120 would feel the same as a day at 150. What a lie. I feel every degree. The sweat pours from pores immediately as I leave my hooch or office and step into the giant oven of baking human beings that constitutes Baghdad. It is awful! Today I was riding around in one of the shuttle buses that take people from place to place. An Iraqi man was muttering to himself in a seat in front of me, “This is hell, this is hell” and wiping beads of sweat off his brow.