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Now
There are three things wrong with the
current policy in Iraq.
Occupation, occupation and
occupation.
Foreign occupation is the reason
why over 90% of Iraqis want the Americans to leave their country.
It is the reason why nearly 50% of Iraqis believe that it is
justifiable to shoot American troops and why nearly 70% of attacks
are on occupation forces. Representative John Murtha was correct
when he said, "We are inciting the problem;" our presence
is a lightening rod for violence.
Bush's promise to establish
security in Baghdad is foolish and doomed to failure. Security
cannot be achieved under occupation because the foreign troops
are perceived as the enemy. This is not hard to grasp. We need
only to imagine how we would react if Iraqi soldiers were maintaining
checkpoints or arresting our people on the streets of America.
There's no point in recriminations.
There will be plenty of time to examine what went wrong after
American forces are withdrawn from the theater. But certainly
there have been events which galvanized Iraqis against the occupation;
the destruction of Falluja and the abuses at Abu Ghraib are perhaps
on top on the list.
More important, we must recognize
where we are now in a conflict that is progressively intensifying
and will not let up until the occupation ends.
The security plan for Baghdad
is short-sighted and will not succeed. We already know that many
of the Iraqis feel threatened by foreign troops on their streets
and that a considerable number of the resistance fighters live
in Baghdad. They are Baghdadis, this is their home. They are
not leaving.
Will we destroy the city to
liberate it? How many doors will be kicked in? How many buildings
will be reduced to rubble? How many innocent people will be dragged
off to interrogation-centers and filthy prisons? How many tens
of thousands of people will be killed?
This is not liberation; it
is "pacification".
Liberation is not living in
fear for one's life every minute of the day. Martial law is not
democracy.
There is no "government"
under occupation, just foreign-military rule. Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki has no power and he governs nothing beyond the
walls of America's the Green Zone.
The Bush administration has
begun to criticize al-Maliki for not stopping the sectarian violence,
but no one is paying attention. Al Maliki follows in the long
progression of American stooges; al-Allawi, al-Jaafari, al Maliki;
none of them have any bearing on events, nor will they have any
part to play in the final outcome. No one is fooled by the actions
or pronouncements of Washington's puppets. It is a public relations
scam that has outlived its usefulness.
If we are serious about concluding
the war in Iraq, we must deal directly with the leaders of the
Iraqi resistance, many of whom were part of the former Ba'athist
regime. There are rumors that talks are currently taking place
in Amman, Jordan between representatives of the resistance and
American officials, but there is no solid confirmation of this.
Negotiations between the warring
parties will not succeed under the guidance of Donald Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld has shown repeatedly that he is incapable of understanding
strategic or political objectives. Even now, he insists that
we should stay the course and persist on the same disastrous
path. The administration's newly-adopted language; "timetable
for benchmarks" is meaningless. It offers no quantifiable
difference from the present policy.
We cannot expect to succeed
by merely intensifying the violence while eliminating media coverage.
Iraq is not the Gaza Strip. It is not possible to surround the
entire country in concertina-wire and fire rockets at anyone
who looks suspicious. This is not a serious approach.
Western elites are increasingly
worried about the long-term effects that the Iraq war will have
on America's global-primacy. The US has sacrificed of its "soft
power" and moral authority in an adventure that has produced
no positive results.
The army is gravely overextended
and morale has begun to plummet. Soldiers' are tired of tour
after tour with no end in sight and nothing to show for the risks
they take every day.
Force-readiness has also begun
to erode as vital military equipment is being devoured by harsh
desert conditions. In a recent article by Andrew Bacevich, "On
the Offense" the author says:
"The once crack Third
Infantry Division, preparing for its third Iraq tour, has two
of its four brigades without tanks or other heavy equipment.
The Army's chief of staff complains that army depots are clogged
with 600 battle-damaged and worn-out Abrams tanks and 1,000 Bradley
Fighting Vehicles awaiting repair. The army lacks the money to
fix them"this despite the fact that the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan have now cost an estimated $500 billion".
The army is steadily wearing
down while Rumsfeld clings to the vain hope that he will snatch
victory from the jaws of defeat. This unrealistic dream of victory
is a phantom that is perpetuating the violence and putting Americans
at risk.
As defense expert Harlan Ullman
(the author of "shock and awe") noted in the Washington
Times, "our policies are failing or foundering and, unless
we take new directions, events in East Asia could follow the
disastrous trajectory of what is happening in the greater Middle
East."
This is what really concerns
western elites who, up until a few months ago, fully supported
the Bush agenda. The attention devoted to Iraq is loosening America's
grip on the rest of the empire, and our influence around the
world is in sharp decline. As we become further mired in an unwinnable
war; there is growing sense that we may have already turned the
corner and are headed for an impending tragedy.
The criticism of the Bush's
Iraq policy is now coming from all sides of the "reality-based"
community. Yesterday, Senator Lindsey Graham's blasted away saying,
"We're on the verge of chaos, and the current plan is not
working." Just hours earlier, former Intelligence official
Wayne White who said, "We are not winning. It's getting
worseThe effort cannot be sustained over the long-haul."
As the criticism continues
to mount, the administration gets more embattled and mistrustful.
Bush equates pigheadedness with steely-resolve, and remains
impervious to reason. He is still in the clutches of his key
advisors, Cheney and Rumsfeld who refuse to entertain the notion
of early withdrawal. They have already indicated that the recommendations
of the James Baker "Iraq Survey Group" will be ignored.
There stubbornness paves the way for an even greater tragedy
in the very near future.
What happens when the war is
lost but the fighting continues?
We are about to find out.
There are now 650,000 reasons
for withdrawing from Iraq and for allowing events to take their
course. Iraq's militias are presently locked in mortal combat
to determine the ultimate political make-up of the future Iraq.
We should stand down and let that process unfold. The belief
that we need to supervise the transition is just more paternalistic
claptrap intended to support the ongoing occupation. The Iraqis
want us out of their affairs and out of their country.
We've turned Iraq into a charnel
house; unleashing the full-force of the world's most powerful
military on a small country that never posed a threat to our
national security. That's enough. It's time to end the occupation
and bring the troops home.
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
