Born Mikhail Yuhanna, he was the highest-ranking Christian in the regime, a Chaldean Catholic (though I rather suspect not a regular churchgoer). I note his passing, but will not say RIP.
Friday, June 5, 2015
Tariq ‘Aziz, 1936-2015
Born Mikhail Yuhanna, he was the highest-ranking Christian in the regime, a Chaldean Catholic (though I rather suspect not a regular churchgoer). I note his passing, but will not say RIP.
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Tariq 'Aziz was a world class foreign minister. To his misfortune, he was working for a world class brutal, authoritarian, and often blindly arrogant thug. Diplomats, unlike scholars and pundits, seldom have any choice about the sovereign they serve. I grew to respect Tareq Aziz for his diplomatic skill and fear him as an adversary. Iraq could have benefited from Aziz' clever and resourceful diplomacy by becoming a formidable power in the international system. Instead, he merely postponed the inevitable collapse of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship after the deaths of countless Iraqis, way too many Iranians and others who got in Saddam's way. So far as I am aware, Tareq Aziz left little beyond hearsay of his own thoughts about what his master was doing. Occupation authorities and later the Iraqi government doubtless interrogated him, but the results are still unavailable. That he did not get interviewed for the public record by a good historian is a loss for scholarship.
What sort of morality does an individual have who works for a regime that imprisons others in often undisclosed "black holes" where prisoners are humiliated, degraded, and tortured? Often in the most sadistic ways? A regime that wages aggressive wars against other countries? That routinely uses lies to cover its evil actions?
What sort of morality, indeed?
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