Stop Blaming the Iraqis

By: Teddy
Published On: 9/14/2007 9:02:31 PM

Most of the current rhetoric from American leaders of all stripes repeatedly comes down to laying the groundwork in order to blame Iraqis for not taking advantage of The Surge to get their act together- i.e., for not creating "reconciliation"and a national unity government which proceeds handily to pass so-called benchmarks on the way to "victory" as defined by the Americans. Bush, in his post-Petreaus address, said "The (Iraqi) government has not met its own legislative benchmarks... and in my meetings with Iraqi leaders I have made it clear that they must."  Actually, not only had Bush "made it clear" many times, Vice-President Dick Cheney even flew to Baghdad last summer to discuss the benchmarks in his own inimitable style with the Iraqi leaders, who, unimpressed, then ditzed around and let parliament go on a two-month vacation.  Ambassador Crocker, upon being asked during the 11 September report to Congress when political reconciliation might occur, responded "I can't predict." (Quoted by Sidney Blumenthal: http://www.salon.com...). 

According to the new Bush catechism, The Surge was intended to provide security for the Iraqi people, giving them time for their police and military to take over protecting them while they had "breathing space" to accomplish the benchmarks.  General Petraeus, trying to prove success, trotted out Power Point charts on violence reduction in Baghdad, but his statistics are suspected of having been jiggered. In reality the body count has been higher every month this year compared to the same month last year, and Senator Biden wrung the admission from Petreaus that "it depended on the neighborhood" if a Sunni could travel safely to a Shia neighborhood in Baghdad.  What The Surge has done in Baghdad is to slow the ethnic cleansing of Sunnis by Shiite militias: "If it weren't for the surge, there would be no Sunnis left in Baghdad," said an Iraqi journalist who works for an American newspaper (Quoted by David Enders in "Why Iraq Is Getting Worse," http://www.alternet....).

Even the proclaimed Surge good news from Anbar Province, where Sunni tribes have turned against Al Qaeda in Iraq and begun cooperating with Americans had a questionable side: the cooperation actually began before The Surge, was not in any way planned as part of The Surge, and suffered a setback when the Sunni Sheik known as Abu Ressa or Risha, who helped turn the tribes to favor the Americans, was this week assassinated by a bomb outside his supposedly safe home in that same Anbar Province.  Nevertheless, Bush sees the glass as half full and has proclaimed The Surge is working, but the Iraqis basically are not. He is laying the groundwork for future arguments about "Who Lost Iraq," and absolving himself in advance.

Bush is requiring the Iraqis to correct the U.S. Government's original errors like de-Baathification (thus achieving so-called "reconciliation") and the dismantling of the Iraqi Army.  The Americans are pushing for a federalist system of government, and a "petroleum policy" which includes not only a decision on how to split oil profits among the Iraqi factions, but also turning about 80 percent of Iraq's oil over to international oil companies for development. Not surprisingly, most Iraqis object to such a one-sided petroleum policy, among other things.

WHY THE IRAQIS ARE NOT PERFORMING TO OUR SPECIFICATIONS

Bush, Republicans, Democrats, the mass media, and General Petraeus all assess The Surge and security from an American point of view.  The unspoken assumption is that America's interests and those of Iraq are the same. "In Iraq," said Bush on the 13th, "an ally of the United States is fighting for its survival... This ally has placed its trust in the United States."  In reality, 47 percent of Iraqis say they want all U.S. troops out of their country immediately, and 57 percent consider attacks on U.S. troops to be "acceptable," according to a poll taken this week by ABC/BBC/NHK  (http://www.salon.com...).  After the invasion, remember, Bush announced a grand vision of scrubbing Iraq clean of its past, establishing an exemplary democratic Iraq, thus leading to transforming the entire Middle East  into an ideal secular capitalist society.  This was supposed to short-circuit radical Islamism and, not incidentally, any Iranian ambitions in the region.  The assumption was that the Middle Eastern people longed for democracy and global capitalism.

According to Joshua Holland we Americans assume that we are on the same side as the Iraqi people, together "with whom 'we're' fighting terrorists and 'anti-Iraqi forces'- a favorite term at the Pentagon." (http://www.alternet....).  Holland points out that, yes, most Iraqis do want a nonsectarian state- they were, after all, one of the most secular states in the Middle East- and the only reason the insurgents called Al Qaeda in Iraq have had any success is entirely due to their resistance to the U.S. occupation. Yet, when various nationalist groups have contacted the Occupation, hoping to negotiate a peace, American officials "rebuffed them."  In other words, "the United States could live up to its lofty rhetoric and embrace the aspirations of the Iraqi people if Washington chose to go that way," but Washington continues to demand their benchmarks be met, rather than get down to discussing what the Iraqis really want.

It will never change while Bush and the Republicans run things because doing so would mean giving up their grand vision of a wide-open, no-holds-barred Iraqi economy flush with oil revenues- and "ripe for the picking by international investors." I myself discussed Bremmer's stripping Iraq of its economy, wiping out all existing business, and allowing foreign exploitation in "Why They Became Insurgents"  http://www.raisingka....
The United States did not invade Iraq to let Iraq's substantial oil reserves be controlled by an Iraqi state-owned oil company, like other Arab oil states, or Venezuela. Globalization has destroyed the economies of many small nations, all in the name of unhindered market capitalism, and Iraq was supposed to be no different.

Thus the interests and greed of global oil companies have been conflated with American national interests.  Holland claims that the concept of national interest has been manipulated to mean the interests of a few.  The interests of the American investor class have co-opted true national interests, at the cost of thousands of American lives and billions (trillions, soon) of taxpayer dollars. For some reason, this simple question: What are the true national interests of the American taxpayer-citizens? has never been on the table for discussion.

Comments



Blind Arrogance of Power (Teddy - 9/14/2007 9:15:14 PM)
runs through the entire story of America in Iraq. Finding out what the Iraqis really want is certainly not difficult; we get a taste of it every time ABC or someone runs a poll. It seems utterly impossible for Americans to understand that what we think we want, and what we think Iraqis want, might not be correct, or even reasonable, and is certainly not the same.

Comments such as "Pottery barn rules, we broke it so we have to fix it," are just as arrogant. So was the idea that Sheikh Abu Ressa of Anbar Province was doing "our" work when he cobbled together an anti-Al Qaeda group of tribes-- he had his own reasons and his own rationale which was far from ours (not that we shouldn't use each other, but we should do it with our eyes open). One exasperated Sheikh, Ali Hathem, has been qouted: "The Americans like to create characters like Disney cartoon heroes."



And we tend to demonize those who disagree with us. (dsvabeachdems - 9/14/2007 10:20:18 PM)
That makes it particularly difficult to reconcile at any level when the tension should naturally disapate. It is all part of the black and white view of the world that keeps the fire stoked after the original embers have disintegrated to ash. But an angry mob is much easier to lead.


Its ironic (JScott - 9/15/2007 8:06:20 AM)
Its ironic that our politicians play games with the whole "reconciliation" rhetoric bounced around about how long it is taking for Sunni and Shia to come together to see the fruits of the federal system....gee some of these life long career politicians are the same guys who IGNORED the very lack of reconciliation between the Catholics and the Protestants in Northern Ireland for so many years and sat by and did and said nothing. I guess its easier to pass judgement on a mess blinded by religious groups that will not impact one at the polls. There hypocrites the lot. I wonder if any of these guys would have the guts to call actions by the IRA years ago "terrorism" or does that only apply to their narrow little field of reality.


True national interest (Teddy - 9/15/2007 10:19:02 AM)
is supposed to guide national leaders: "States do not have 'friends,' which come and go; states do have permanent interests." So what's the problem here with defining our true national interest? Can it be that we never had any in Iraq (geyond access to oil, perhaps?)

Can it be that Bush was guided by the interests of his corporate buddies, particularly in the petro fraternity? Did he use the full faith and credit of the United States, not to mention the treasure and lives of American military in order to fulfill the interests of those buddies? 

It would not be the first time non-public interests commanded the use of public funds for private purposes--- this is modern mercantilism, so to speak.