Iraq Comes Undone - What Will Be the US Response?

by Mary

When George W. Bush was (s)elected, his administration had already decided that they would take out Saddam and remake the Middle East to reflect their dream of America unbounded. He and his advisors (and especially his doppelganger VP) had never fought in any war themselves, but they had no doubt that America needed to flex its power and take its rightful place in the world as the nation above all other nations. In their eyes, the namby-pamby liberals had been sabotaging the US by insisting that we work with others in the UN and other international alliances which in their mind constrained the country from asserting its rightful place in the world. They believed that the US military had been misused. And that the US should never have betrayed the military in Vietnam (what weaklings). They believed that leaving Vietnam, draining our forces on humanitarian police actions and following international laws were signs of weakness and they would come in and show the world and those traitorous liberals how real men act: boldly and without apology. Iraq was the perfect first step in making the world safe for America for the next century.

So today we find ourselves in a quagmire much worse that Vietnam. Last August, I noted that the US could not as easily abandon Iraq as they did Vietnam. At least Vietnam had an active opposition that could take over from the retreating American troops. It was eerie how the progression in Iraq looked like Vietnam, but instead of taking years, the increasingly negative aspects were being manifested in months. Matt described this as fast forwarding history. Now Condoleeza's PhD thesis advisor says he also believes getting out of Vietnam will look easy when compared to getting out of Iraq and wonders how she could have been party to such a mistake.

And what a mistake it was and continues to be. War is always a force that creates chaos defying human control. Last May Bush arrogantly proclaimed "Mission Accomplished". Today, as Iraq spirals out of control and into a nightmare, everyone, even the most ardent warmonger, can see that Bush's declaration was premature. Reading Juan Cole today is truly depressing because it is clear that our country and Iraq are paying and will continue to pay dearly for the decisions and carelessness of this arrogant and hubristic administration.

Fallujah Bloodbath threatens US-Appointed Iraqi Government with Collapse

AP reported that the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) issued a demand early on Saturday that the US cease its military action against Fallujah and stop employing "collective punishment."

Not only has what many Iraqis call "the puppet council" taken a stand against Bush administration tactics in Iraq, but individual members are peeling off. Shiite Marsh Arab leader Abdul Karim al-Muhammadawi suspended his membership in the council on Friday. A Sunni member, Ghazi al-Yawir, has threatened to resign if a negotiated settlement of the Fallujah conflict cannot be found. Old-time Sunni nationalist leader Adnan Pachachi thundered on al-Arabiya televsion, "It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah, and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal." For him to go on an Arab satellite station much hated by Donald Rumsfeld and denounce the very people who appointed him to the IGC is a clear act of defiance. There are rumors that many of the 25 Governing Council members have fled abroad, fearful of assassination because of their association with the Americans. The ones who are left appear on the verge of resigning.

This looks to me like an incipient collapse of the US government of Iraq. Beyond the IGC, the bureaucracy is protesting. Many government workers in the ministries are on strike and refusing to show up for work, according to ash-Sharq al-Awsat. Without Iraqis willing to serve in the Iraqi government, the US would be forced to rule the country militarily and by main force. Its legitimacy appears to be dwindling fast. The "handover of sovereignty" scheduled for June 30 was always nothing more than a publicity stunt for the benefit of Bush's election campaign, but it now seems likely to be even more empty. Since its main rationale was to provide more legitimacy to the US enterprise in Iraq, and since any legitimacy the US had is fading fast, and since a government appointed by Bremer will be hated by virtue of that very appointment, the Bush administration may as well just not bother.

The Interior Minister, Nuri Badran, who was dismissed by Paul Bremer on Thursday, appears to have gone into exile in Jordan. He was probably let go because he objected to the twin US assaults, on Fallujah and on the Sadrist Shiites, or at least to the way it was being done.

The degree of hatred for the United States in the Muslim world is growing by the minute, as the events in Fallujah are broadcast throughout the region. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's warning to Bush that by invading Iraq he would be creating 100 Bin Ladens may well come to pass. For more on this see the Washington Post.

Part of what caused this incipient collapse of the US-appointed Iraqi government is that the US military decided to besiege the entire city of Fallujah to get at insurgents who killed 4 US Blackwater mercenaries last week, even though reports indicated that the guerrillas left the city after the killings. Those guerrillas, supported by civilian demonstrations and desecration of the mercenaries' bodies, announced that they were taking revenge for the Israeli murder of Hamas clerical leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Just as the Israelis and their American amen corner helped drag the US into the Iraq war, so they also have inflamed Iraqi sentiment against the US by spectacular uses of state terror against Palestinians. Both the Sunni and the Shiite uprisings in Iraq in the past week in a very real sense were set off by Sharon's whacking of Yassin, a paraplegic who could easily have been arrested. (Only once Muqtada al-Sadr announced his support for Hamas was he targeted by the Neocon-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority for arrest, convincing him that he had nothing to lose and had better launch an insurgency).

Thus it looks like if Bush "turns over" Iraq to the Iraqis by June 30th, the only one left to take it will be that lying thief, Ahmad Chalabi, who is distrusted even more than Saddam by the Iraqis. And if the US troops (and the mercenaries for which we pay with our tax dollars) were not there, Chalabi would be torn limb from limb by the Iraqis for his part in bringing Bush and the other bloodsuckers into Iraq to feed of the Iraqi pain and suck up the Iraqi wealth.

So what will be the response of the warmongers? Those who hated the weakness engendered by following the rule of law and in concert with others in the world? This failure will certainly not be blamed on Bush and his totally incompetent crew, but will result in anger and lashing out at those who should have been grateful. The siege of Fallujah showed the implacable face of the American military and the famous Bush "will". When the entire country displays their disrespect for Bush, what other unspeakable atrocities will he enable to punish the ungrateful Iraqis? God save us all from the anger and the petty, vicious mentality that Bush has spawned and emboldened by his illegal warmaking.