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Commentary :: International Relations

No end to Bush war blues

Extra-parliamentary action in the shape of mass mobilization on the Vietnam War scale may be the only way for the US to redeem itself in the short run. That may not be a likely prospect, but the dire alternatives barely bear contemplation, particularly if Iran is to become the new Cambodia.
LAST month, the executioners of Saddam Hussein pulled off a small miracle when they succeeded in inducing a brief twinge of sympathy for the doomed dictator. Last week, some people found it hard not to feel at least a tiny bit sorry for another mass murderer as he stood there in the White House, determinedly digging himself deeper into a hole that no sensible person would have stepped into in the first place.

There was more than a hint of desperation last Wednesday in one of the most anticipated pronouncements of George W. Bush’s pathetic presidency. The gist of his 20-minute oration had been leaked by the White House over the preceding couple of weeks, so everyone knew about the coming surge, although the presidential speechwriters calculatedly left out that catchword. Nor did Bush mention the purge leading up to the surge, whereby the main military and civilian figures in charge of the occupation have been replaced. He concentrated instead on supplementing a dirge about the possibility of defeat with an overture to the Sunni side of the street.

The compassion was necessarily fleeting. It could have been different, but that would have required a drastically different approach from the commander-in-chief. “Where mistakes have been made,” he intoned, “the responsibility rests with me.” that simply will not do in the face of an obstinate refusal to see the error of his ways. The decision to violate Iraq’s sovereignty was not a mistake: it was a colossal crime. Everything else has flowed from that. It cannot be set right by doubling the number of American troops in Baghdad.

The next day, Bush managed to muster a solitary tear when reflecting on the loss of young lives (only American one, obviously) in Iraq. He closely resembled a crocodile at that point. Even quasi-sincere concern would have made him think twice before committing them to combat on the basis of canards. Unless it was glycerine, what makes the single tear even more galling is that it followed the announcement that even more young Americans will be sent into harm’s way. As Phil Ochs sang more than 40 years ago, “It’s always the old to lead us to the war/ It’s always the young to fall/ Now look at all we’ve won with the sabre and the gun/ Tell me is it worth it all?”

Sabres are seldom used nowadays, but sabre-rattling never went out of fashion, and over the past week Bush has indulged in a fair amount vis-à-vis Iran. He also threw in another old favourite, gunboat diplomacy, for good measure. Could it be possible that the so-called surge isn’t the last throw of the dice for the humiliated neo-cons? The full-spectrum dominance they once dreamed of may have proved unfeasible, but are they clinging on to their dream of bringing democracy to Iran, after the resounding success of the Iraq enterprise?

A ground invasion is out of the question, but a “shock and awe” assault from the skies - with or without Israeli assistance - cannot be ruled out, with Iran’s nuclear activities being cited as an excuse. It would be devastating for Iran and disastrous for the Middle East, but such considerations are unlikely to deter the fanatics who continue to control the US military agenda. It would also entail more blowback than the US has ever experienced before, but the neo-cons are perfectly capable of averting their gaze from that likelihood.

It must be hoped, of course, this scenario does not come to pass. But it is not based purely on conjecture. Bush’s belligerent speech more or less coincided with the abduction of half a dozen Iranians from semi-diplomatic premises in Irbil, five of whom remained in American custody at the start of the week, despite protests from the foreign ministry in Iraq as well as the Kurdish administration, which is counted among the closest allies of the occupation forces. The US says the detainees were Revolutionary Guards sent to foment the insurgency; Iran says they were in the process of setting up a consulate. Teheran’s word isn’t much more trustworthy than that of Washington, but the level of hypocrisy involved in the US (or Britain) decrying “foreign interference” in Iraq’s affairs is never less than astounding.

The US has thus far been unable to come to terms with the fact that the Shia parties it has helped to catapult into office in Baghdad inevitably enjoy fraternal relations with Teheran. That could be one reason behind what Bush has described as a change of strategy, although it adds up to no more than a tactical adjustment: the possibility that US and Iraqi government forces will jointly challenge the Shia militias that have made life hell for Sunnis, rather than concentrating mainly on the Sunni forces that commonly target Shias.

In that case, one of the obvious targets would be the Mahdi Army of Moqtada Al Sadr, which controls the 2,000,000-strong Shia stronghold of Sadr City. Politically, prime minister Nouri Al Malliki can ill afford to antagonize the fiery Moqtada, nor is there any guarantee that Shia soldiers would be prepared to participate in such an endeavour. Washington, meanwhile, has made it clear that it considers Malliki dispensable - a less turbulent quisling can easily be found. Condoleezza Rice and Zalmay Khalilzad have warned that the Malliki government is living on borrowed time.

Reports in the American press suggest that negotiations between US officers and representatives of the Malliki regime are - predictably - not going well. The Americans are less than thrilled by the appointment of Aboud Qanbar, a southern Shia who served as a senior general in Saddam’s army, as the Iraqi commander for the Baghdad operation. The idea of the better-trained and better-equipped Americans taking a secondary role in military operations is anyhow ridiculous: this tactic has floundered before.

Bush does not, as far as anyone can tell, have a Plan B - unless it involves Iran. The additional troops, he has threatened, may not be made available if the Iraqis don’t live up to their side of the bargain. That won’t bother the Malliki administration, which has been unenthusiastic about the prospect anyhow. For a change, it is the Sunnis who keen on the prospect of protection, with the Shias having supplanted the Americans as primary foes in their eyes.

Bush has also warned that Malliki runs the risk of losing the support of the American people. The puppet prime minister is unlikely to ever have presumed that he enjoyed the endorsement of the American public. Perhaps Bush was playing some sort of delusional mind game with his audience. After all, it is he who has lost the support of the American people. Opinion polls last week suggested that backing for his conduct of the war has dropped to 26 per cent, while 61 per cent of Americans opposed the surge. The idea of taking on Iran - indeed the provocations may have been calculated to impress Israel and Saudi Arabia - is unlikely to generate much jingoism.

In his speech last Wednesday, Bush yet again insinuated a link between 9/11 and the assault on Iraq. It’s hard to say who that bit of regurgitated deceit was directed at, but there are some people - not only in the US - who accept at face value the argument that American withdrawal from Iraq would be victory for the terrorists. The fact is that no military enterprise in recent history has succeeded in creating as many terrorists, in all parts of the world, as the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The trend will continue as long as US forces remain in the region. All talk about eliminating the root causes of terrorism is so much hot air unless it takes cognizance of the fact that the single largest factor responsible for anti-Western violence, indiscriminate or otherwise, is various forms of imperialism.

Iraq, of course, has received a bigger dose than most. The second largest foreign force in that country consists of private contractors, and the additional reconstruction activity presaged by Bush’s speech means greater scope for war-profiteers such as Halliburton and its subsidiaries, which have already quite literally made a killing. Bush also mentioned a plan (which he couldn’t spell out because no one appears to be aware of its intricacies) for the redistribution of Iraq’s oil wealth among its people - those who have survived, that is. He made no mention of another plan: to give the likes as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude, with the companies initially allowed to gobble up 75 per cent of the profits.

He also talked about turning Iraq into “a country that fights terrorists instead of harbouring them”. But the choice isn’t necessarily so stark: Pakistan has proved capable of doing both. And it’s possible that Ryan Crocker’s reassignment to Baghdad is realistic nod towards acknowledging that likelihood. Beyond that, changes in personnel and tactics are more or less meaningless. It’s absurd to dismiss them as a case of too little, too late. They wouldn’t have worked at any stage. What’s required is a complete reversal of course. Bush lacks the courage and the imagination to undo a grievous wrong, and all one can expect from the Democrat-dominated Congress is a mild reprimand.

Extra-parliamentary action in the shape of mass mobilization on the Vietnam War scale may be the only way for the US to redeem itself in the short run. That may not be a likely prospect, but the dire alternatives barely bear contemplation, particularly if Iran is to become the new Cambodia.
 
 

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