All the same, “we are where we are” and we need to understand
why “staying the course” will push us deeper into the quicksand of
defeat while conferring ever-greater power to Iran.
Bush’s new “security strategy” does nothing to promote American
interests in Iraq; it benefits Iran alone. The “surge” is a tactic not
a strategy. It does not consider the overall objectives of US
involvement in Iraq, but continues to pursue the narrow aim of
eliminating one enemy over another. This is hopelessly
counterproductive and will end in disaster. By focusing all of his
military resources on defeating the Sunni-led resistance, Bush has made
a “devil’s bargain” with the Iranian-backed Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the
biggest gangster in all of Baghdad, who is instigating much of the
sectarian violence. Al-Hakim spent 20 years in Iran prior to the fall
of Saddam and is clearly allied to the Mullahs. His militia, the Badr
Brigade, was trained by the Iranian Republican Guards (as well as the
CIA) and is perhaps the most feared death squad in all of Iraq.
Al-Hakim’s militia operates out of the Iraqi Interior Ministry and is
deeply engaged in the purging of Sunnis from Baghdad.
What does Bush gain by defeating the Sunnis-led resistance but
elevating the agents of Iran? How long will it be, after the last Sunni
is driven out of Baghdad, before the Badr Brigade turns their guns on
Bush and the American troops?
Bush is just substituting one adversary for another while exhausting his forces at the same time.
If we can understand what is meant by the “surge” then we can see why
it is bound to fail and why it will further strengthen Iran’s power in
Iraq.
The “surge” is not a plan for security as it is touted to be; that’s
merely a public relations smokescreen. No one in their right mind
believes that 21,500 troops are sufficient to provide security to a
city of 6 million Iraqis. Rather, the surge is designed to drive the
Sunnis from Baghdad so that the platforms of support for the Iraqi
resistance will be effectively removed. (“Drain the swamp”) No one has
shown a better grasp of what the “surge” really means than military
analyst and historian, William Lind. In a recent article in
counterpunch, Lind summarized the policy like this:
“The Americans will drive out the Sunni insurgents, leaving Sunni
neighborhoods defenseless. As the American troops move on, they will be
replaced by Iraqi soldiers and police, mostly Shiite militiamen, WHO
WILL ETHNICALLY CLEANSE THE AREA OF SUNNIS …The Americans will have
fulfilled their allotted function, fighting the Sunnis on behalf of the
Shiites”. (William S. Lind “The Real Game in Iraq” counterpunch.org)
That’s it in a nutshell; the surge is ethnic cleansing.
Lind’s predictions are, in fact, taking place right now in the Haifa
district as well as other Sunni-dominated neighborhoods throughout the
capital. As A.K. Gupta reports in this month’s Z Magazine “At least 10
mixed neighborhoods in Baghdad have already been turned exclusively
Shia at gunpoint.” (“Bush’s Iraq Strategy for 2007” AK Gupta, Z
Magazine, Feb 2007)
The surge illustrates the Bush administration’s basic misunderstanding
of the war in which we are engaged. Iraq is not the type of conflict
where one can simply draw up a checklist and eliminate enemies one by
one. All of the main groups are lined-up against the occupation; some
are merely waiting for the US military to crush their traditional
rivals before they act. (We saw this unfold in thee recent massacre
outside of Najaf this week) Increasing the violence at this point only
strengthens future adversaries and undermines the prospects for a
political solution.
Lt. General WILLIAM E. ODOM clarified this point in a recent article,
“Strategic Errors of Monumental Proportions,” where he states:
“The war has served primarily the interests of Iran and al Qaeda, not
American interests….WE CANNOT REVERSE THIS OUTCOME BY MORE USE OF
MILITARY FORCE IN IRAQ …Our democratization policy has installed Shiite
majorities and pro-Iranians groups in power in Baghdad, especially in
the ministries of interior and defense. Moreover, our counterinsurgency
operations are, as unintended (but easily foreseeable) consequences,
first, greater Shiite openness to Iranian influence and second, al
Qaeda's entry into Iraq and rooting itself in some elements of Iraqi
society.”
Odom’s comments are similar to those of veteran journalist, Tom
Lasseter, whose recent article “Surge Might Only Help al-Sadr” confirms
much of what Odom says:
“The US military drive to train and equip
Iraq’s security forces has unwittingly strengthened Muqtada al-Sadr’s
Mahdi Army militia, which has been battling to take over the capital as
American forces are trying to secure it…
“They wave at us during the day, and shoot at us at night,” said 1st
Lieutenant Dan Quinn. ..”People in America think its bad, but they
believe that we control the city. That’s not the way it is. They
control it, and they let us drive around. It’s hostile territory.”
Quinn added, “Honestly, within 6 months of us leaving, the way Iranian
clerics run the country behind the scenes, it’ll be the same way here
with al-Sadr. He already runs our side of the river.”
These comments show why Bush’s plan to eliminate his enemies one by one
will not succeed, but will only further strengthen Iranian interests
while weakening America’s already-tenuous position. There is no
alternative to political solution, and yet, the Bush administration has
proved that it is as incapable of negotiation as it is of thinking
strategically.
The administration’s rejection of political dialogue is rooted in an
ideological belief that “force alone” can produce political results.
Perhaps this theory emerges from the Israeli-model where “no solution”
is considered desirable. The occupation of Palestine depends on a
permanent state of “no settlement”; a process which requires constantly
moving the goalposts so that final status negotiations can never be
realistically be held.
In Israel it is essential to sustain hostilities so that the
expropriation of land can continue apace, but that model that won’t
work in Iraq. This is not a territorial conflict, but a war for
resources. The objectives are to establish political stability not to
maintain a low-level war into perpetuity.
General William Odom suggests that the current “no plan” of the Bush
administration should be reevaluated in terms of America’s long term
goals:
“Any new strategy that does not realistically promise to achieve
regional stability at a cost we can prudently bear, and does not regain
the confidence and support of our allies, is doomed to failure. To
date, I have seen no awareness that any political leader has gone
beyond tactical proposals to offer a different strategic approach to
limiting the damage in a war that is turning out to be the greatest
strategic disaster in our history.”
Time is running out for the Bush administration. The American public no
longer supports the war and the congress is taking a progressively more
assertive role in the shaping the extent of US involvement. The
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) which was presented to Bush on
Friday “outlines an increasingly perilous situation in which there is a
strong possibility of further deterioration”. (Washington Post) The NIE
suggests that there is no chance for near-term reconciliation and that
the violence over the next 18 months is likely to intensify.
The Bush administration’s response to the NIE has been entirely
predictable. They are planning to forge ahead with their plan for
ethnic cleansing (via the surge) which will only add to “the hell that
is Iraq”. (Saddam’s last words”)
The ceaseless violence is creating the greatest humanitarian
catastrophe of our time, already 3 million Iraqi have been displaced
within the country or have been forced into nearby Syria, Jordan and
Egypt. So far, the Bush administration has admitted less than 500 Iraqi
refugees into the US although the crisis was triggered by its
unprovoked aggression against a defenseless state.
Across Iraq, there has been a steady up-tick in the violence which goes
unreported in the western press. In Albasrah.net (“An Appeal on Behalf
of the Iraqi People”) we can read of the ongoing attack on Sunni cities
like Haditha, “a city which has suffered repeated attacks from US
forces during 2006 and has been under a medieval siege for more than 2
months, with food, water, electricity and fuel being cut off and
movement in the city has been restricted….The US military tactics of
collective punishment have been used repeatedly on neighboring cities
of Fallujah, Tel Afar, Ramadi, Hussabaiya etc.” Reports from the Sunni
heartland are completely blacked-out in the mainstream media. Two years
later, and Americans still have not seen the vast devastation from the
military’s Dresden-like bombardment of Fallujah.
Also, according to the conservative Jerusalem Post, “The pro-Iranian
Mahdi Army is waging a war to eliminate the entire population
Palestinian population in Iraq…. Palestinian leaders and activists are
describing a ‘systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing’. Thousands of
Palestinian families have been forced to flee Iraq since the downfall
of Saddam Hussein, but have no place to go.” (“Palestinians ‘Ethnic
Cleansing” in Iraq”)
The deliberate attack on Iraqi intellectuals and academics has also
gone largely unreported in the western media. In a heart-wrenching
article by Layla Anwar, “A Stroll Down Haifa Street”, the author
details the assault on a university professor, Ahmed Kamal Nabil. Nabil
tells how teachers and students have been targeted as “the last line of
resistance against political manipulation and terror in the new Iraq.
Academics are targeted because they cannot be ideologically
controlled…or sucked into the role of mouth piece for the occupation
and its puppets…And academics are targeted because the new Iraq has
become one big looting field run by mercenaries, thugs, politically
corrupt opportunists, sectarian agitators, fanatical dark minds, and
barbarians.
And they want it to remain that way. They want to make sure that Iraq
will never raise its head again. So they drain it of its intellectuals.
In the New Iraq, there is no place for knowledge. Knowledge is the enemy.”
Nabil is right, of course; knowledge is the enemy in a country that is rapidly tilting towards religious extremism.
Changing Course
No one has shown a better grasp of the heavy price that America has
paid for its misguided war in Iraq than Zbigniew Brzezinski, former
national security advisor to Jimmy Carter. In testimony last week
before the Senate subcommittee Brzezinski said:
"The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity.
Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America's global
legitimacy. Its collateral civilians casualties as well as some abuses
are tarnishing America's moral credentials...The result is growing
political isolation of, and pervasive popular antagonism toward, the
U.S. global posture."
Brzezinski then added that Bush’s present “stay the course” policy will inevitably lead to a larger regional conflict:
“My horror scenario is that we simply stay put, this will continue, and
then the dynamic of the conflict will produce an escalating situation,
in which Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks will be blamed on the
Iranians. There will be some clashes, collisions, and the war expands.”
Brzezinski is right; “staying put” will lead inexorably to escalation.
The emphasis now needs to be on “regional stability” not the
suppression of sectarian violence or the ongoing fight against the
armed resistance. It is up to the congress to see that we avert the
impendingcatastrophe by quickly changing course. Bush’s strategy has
strengthened Iranian influence in Iraq and now it threatens to consume
the entire Middle East in a region-wide conflagration. As Brzezinski
said:
“If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted,
bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill
track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the
world of Islam at large.”
Congressis duty-bound to stop this tragedy from unfolding.
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The Anglo-American military-industrial-petroleum-intelligence-axis will not allow any nation-state in the Caspian Basin or the Persian Gulf to attain hegemonic status. Ipso facto, Iran's regional ambitions will be challenged by the Anglo-American condominium. This might mean a conventional conflict or a series of proxy wars. The theater of operations radiates from Iraq into Iran including Syria, Lebanon, the rest of the Gulf States and the Levant. By extension, this theater also subsumes interests in the Horn of Africa, the Caucuses and the Caspian Basin. The mainstream media are only able to hold up a mirror and reflect half the story. One must know the history of the region and the dynamic tensions that exist to see what is transpiring. Sound bites about "lies" and secret dodgy dossiers are red herrings - pablum for the hoi polloi. Geostrategy, geopolitics, international relations, and geoeconomic considerations are far too complex to be reduced to the phantasmagorial schizophrenia of the 24 hour news cycle and ephemeral literature.
This transcends the tendentious rhetoric of the Washington elite as well. US foreign policy is crafted and perpetuated regardless of which party ostensibly holds power. I proffer here for consideration the Carter Doctrine. Carter propounded:
"Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."
To attack the basis of the Bush Doctrine, one must first confront the realities of the aforementioned Carter Doctrine. The two are inextricable linked and share a common foundation. I believe this evinces a continuum in foreign policies across presidential administrations. Rhetorically, Carter and Bush are antipodal; however, in the sphere of national security, their weltanschauungs run confluent. Carter’s abdication from this stance after leaving office is ancillary and inconsequential. His ability to shape and prosecute foreign policy ended with his ouster from office.
Regional suzerainty has been the declared US stance in the Middle East for more than a generation; the lineaments of this structure may have been augmented and updated, but the broad brush strokes remain the same. The Anglo-American axis will continue to pursue and preserve hegemony in the Persian Gulf and its logical peripheries: Africa and the Caspian basin.
With this I believe we are witnessing the prosecution of a grand foreign policy scheme rather than a reactive, autistic attempt to extricate our forces from the Middle East. The antecedents run deep and the goal is clear: A fragmented Middle Eastern checkerboard with no clear hegemon with the Anglo-American condominium as suzerain. I invoke Bernard Lewis’s hypothetical map of the theater as an example.
(http://www.daanspeak.com/IranA...isMap.html)
While I adduce Lewis's map as a paradigm and not a foreign policy strategy, I believe this highlights the nature of the guidance that underpins the planning of the Anglo-American axis. In furtherance of this idea, I would invite one to research the Silk Road Strategy Act of 1999
(http://www.eurasianet.org/reso...kroad.html). This is codified proof of US ambition in the South Caucasus and Central Asia that transcends unexpected geopolitical developments such as the events of September 11, 2001 as well as administration transitions.