The shooting was actually to celebrate Iraq’s win Saturday evening in the quarterfinals of the Asian Football Cup. The underdog team is something of a Cinderella story for the millions of Iraqi soccer fans, and is now in the semi-finals. Given the sectarian violence that’s stretching the country to the breaking point, it’s worth enduring some gunfire if it’s unifying Iraq behind a bunch of footballers.
The match was also intriguing on another level. The other team was Vietnam, which having lost 2-0, was eliminated from the tournament. The two countries share a lot more than just being on a soccer field. Both have hosted U.S. forces, and both have suffered mightily in the aftermath.
Shortly before kickoff, I was at the home of Abdul Samid Rahman Sultan, Iraq’s minister for displacement and migration. His business is trying to bring people together so the estimated two million Iraqi refugees can return home. Over orange juice and sliced watermelon, he describes the current situation here in a way most people wouldn’t. The current conflict, according to Sultan, is actually between Sunni Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria on one side, and Iran on the other. The Baghdad street is their battlefield, he says.
Both sides are vying for influence here, he argues. Unknown figures within the Arab countries are supplying suicide bombers for Al Qaeda and cash for Sunni insurgents, while elements in Iran are giving weapons and assistance to Shiite militias. Sultan frowns as he concludes that Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite fighters are mere proxies whose strings are being pulled by puppeteers in neighboring countries. “They don’t have an understanding of nationalism,” he says.
Vietnam knows a thing or two about being a proxy. The Indochina War that engulfed Vietnam, as well as Cambodia and Laos, was a byproduct of the Cold War between the United States and former Soviet Union. In the 1960s, America was trying to stop the spread of Communism; today Washington is attempting to halt the advance of Al Qaeda-style terrorism and fundamentalist Islam. Have the enemy’s colors changed from Communist red to Islamic green?
The Bush administration doesn’t care for comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq. But they’re undeniable, as critics point to a quagmire, the growing refugee problem and hypotheticals about evacuating from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in the Green Zone–just as they did in Saigon in 1975. But none of that mattered Saturday in Bangkok, where Iraq and Vietnam played 90 minutes of exciting football. After scoring the victory-clinching goal near the end, Iraqi captain Younis Mahmoud, as he’s done in previous matches, pulled out and kissed a small Iraqi flag that was hidden in his pocket. Perhaps a winning national soccer team is something all Iraqis can unite around.
