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Whither Iraq?
Gilbert Achcar on the US occupation and the antiwar movement after the election
Anyone who happened to watch the message on Iraq in George W. Bush's State of
the Union address to the US Congress on February 3 must be convinced that the
members of both Houses, starting with Dick Cheney himself, are definitely making
the physical effort needed to sustain their cardiac health. The frenzied rhythm
of their standing ovations equalled indeed the most intensive aerobics. As for
seeking an Oscar award, it was a total failure, the scriptwriters of the Bush
administration being better at soap operas than at good quality movies, and Bush
himself being a pitiful actor, even by Ronald Reagan's easy-to-match standard.
The hypocrisy was at its highest: as was predictable and predicted, George W.
Bush tried to present the Iraqi elections as a great feat of democracy for which
his administration could claim the main credit. On TV screens, the public could
see an Iraqi woman standing up in front of the two chambers of Congress and
raising her purple finger -- the forefinger in her case, whereas the Iraqi
people had indeed raised their middle fingers at their occupiers, to borrow
Naomi Klein's joke in her excellent piece ("Getting the Purple Finger," The
Nation, Feb. 10, 2005).
In the next few days, the US mainstream media themselves could not hide the fact
that the US had actually suffered a real defeat with the election. Not only had
this election been imposed on the occupiers by the mass street pressure of the
Iraqi population, after several months of heated confrontation between US
Proconsul Paul Bremer and Shia Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani; but the latter managed
to frustrate all attempts by Washington's new Proconsul John Negroponte to form
a single slate of all the participants in the post-invasion US-appointed Iraqi
"Governing Councils."
Washington's and London's stooges were rejected, and Iyad Allawi, as well as al-Yawar,
Pachachi, etc., had no choice but to wage campaigns on their own, while the
Ayatollah sponsored a United Iraqi Alliance (UIA, its commonly used denomination
in English) friendly to Iran, including the key Shia Islamic fundamentalist
forces as well as a variety of other Shia and non-Shia groups.
Despite the heavy-handed US interference in the electoral campaign, and the
strong financial and political backing by Washington and London, their stooge
Allawi was severely defeated, getting less than 14% of the votes -- and this
despite the non-participation in the voting of an important part of the Iraqi
population, most of them very much opposed to everything he represents.
The remarkable and impressive mass mobilization among Shias and Kurds in the
safest provinces of the country (on this, see the appendix below) led to a
sweeping victory of the UIA with 48% of the total vote cast followed by the
Kurdish Alliance with 26%, Allawi's list coming a distant third with only little
over half the votes of the Kurdish slate. (A fast spreading rumor says that the
US got the proportion of votes won by the UIA depressed from 60% to less than
50% in order to prevent them from deciding the fate of the country.)
Washington's vain hope that Allawi's slate, along with other pro-occupation
forces, could get a number of seats allowing them to perpetuate the puppet
regime with the support of Kurdish members of the elected Assembly was
shattered. Even though the UIA does not command the two-thirds of seats required
for key decisions -- this according to the Bremer-devised Transitional
Administrative Law, which is contested by the UIA and which Ayatollah al-Sistani
vetoed when Washington tried to inscribe it in the UN resolution calling for the
election -- it is by far the main pillar of the new Assembly, with more than
half its seats.
Washington stands now hoping that it will be able to break the Shia coalition,
through its stooge Allawi, by resorting to all kind of dirty means from threats
to bribery. The trial of strength between al-Sistani and the occupiers is far
from finished. Whatever the developments in the near future in this Iraqi drama,
full of coups de théâtre and backstage maneuvering, two issues should be already
very clear.
WASHINGTON'S ATTITUDE ON THE WITHDRAWAL OF ITS FORCES
It was absolutely obvious to all observers that the great majority of Arab
voters -- and therefore the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi population,
taking into account the dominant mood of those who didn't vote -- were and are
opposed to the occupation. Actually, it did not escape most observers' attention
that the vast majority of Arab voters considered their vote to be a political
means to get rid of the occupation. This mood was so compelling that almost all
Arab Iraqi slates included the withdrawal of foreign troops as a central item of
their program. Even Allawi's list did so! (Their banners stated in Arabic: Vote
for Allawi's slate if you want a strong Iraq free of foreign troops.)
The UIA's electoral program called very explicitly for negotiations with the
occupation forces in order to set a timetable for their withdrawal. This very
same demand has become the central requisite of the political forces that are
staunchest in their opposition to the occupation: the Sunni Association of
Muslim Scholars (or Council of Muslim Ulema) and Moqtada al-Sadr's Current. The
two entered an informal alliance to press this demand on the majority of the
elected Assembly.
It is to this same demand again that George W. Bush referred explicitly when he
declared in his State of the Union address:
"We will not set an artificial timetable for leaving Iraq, because that would
embolden the terrorists and make them believe they can wait us out. We are in
Iraq to achieve a result: A country that is democratic, representative of all
its people, at peace with its neighbours and able to defend itself. And when
that result is achieved, our men and women serving in Iraq will return home with
the honour they have earned."
The choice of words was quite precise and meaningful: "We will not set an
artificial timetable" meant no timetable at all, since any timetable can only be
"artificial," whereas the "natural" deadline that Bush hinted at -- "We are in
Iraq to achieve a result... And when that result is achieved..." -- amounts to
saying that Washington will decide unilaterally if and when it will withdraw its
troops. The "result" to be achieved hints at the fact that the new Assembly and
future government of Iraq are not yet "representative of all its people."
A "democratic" Iraq means, for Bush, a country that is not ruled by an Iran-like
regime combining Islamic fundamentalism, a measure of parliamentarianism and
hostility to US domination (though Washington is perfectly happy with the Saudi
combination of servility to the US and extreme fundamentalism -- certainly the
most undemocratic and anti-women regime on earth). An Iraq "at peace with its
neighbours" could only mean, in Bush's mouth, an Iraqi government at peace with
Israel, along with the Jordanian and Saudi kingdoms, with the Iranian and Syrian
neighbours "pacified" according to Washington's standard. Finally, an Iraq "able
to defend itself" means that Washington will not withdraw (partially) from the
country before it is assured that it is under the control of armed forces that
are as much dependent on Washington as their Saudi and Jordanian counterparts
are.
This section of Bush's State of the Union address, with its stress on the
"result" versus the "timetable," was echoing very clearly the warning formulated
publicly a few days earlier by two senior veterans of the Republican foreign
policy establishment, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz. They had published
together an article in the Washington Post on January 25, on the eve of the
Iraqi election -- the title of which was: "Results, Not Timetables, Matter in
Iraq"!
It is worth quoting at length due to its blunt expression of the real strategic
considerations guiding Washington:
"The essential prerequisite for an acceptable exit strategy is a sustainable
outcome, not an arbitrary time limit. For the outcome in Iraq will shape the
next decade of American foreign policy. A debacle would usher in a series of
convulsions in the region as radicals and fundamentalists moved for dominance,
with the wind seemingly at their backs. Wherever there are significant Muslim
populations, radical elements would be emboldened. As the rest of the world
related to this reality, its sense of direction would be impaired by the
demonstration of American confusion in Iraq.
"If a democratic process is to unify Iraq peacefully, a great deal depends on
how the Shiite majority defines majority rule. So far the subtle Shiite leaders,
hardened by having survived decades of Saddam Hussein's tyranny, have been
ambiguous about their goals. They have insisted on early elections -- indeed,
the date of Jan. 30 was established on the basis of a near-ultimatum by the most
eminent Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. The Shiites have also urged
voting procedures based on national candidate lists, which work against federal
and regional political institutions. Recent Shiite pronouncements have affirmed
the goal of a secular state but have left open the interpretation of majority
rule. An absolutist application of majority rule would make it difficult to
achieve political legitimacy. ...
"The reaction to intransigent Sunni brutality and the relative Shiite quiet must
not tempt us into identifying Iraqi legitimacy with unchecked Shiite rule. The
American experience with Shiite theocracy in Iran since 1979 does not inspire
confidence in our ability to forecast Shiite evolution or the prospects of a
Shiite-dominated bloc extending to the Mediterranean. ...
"The Constituent Assembly emerging from the elections will be sovereign to some
extent. But the United States' continuing leverage should be focused on four key
objectives: (1) to prevent any group from using the political process to
establish the kind of dominance previously enjoyed by the Sunnis; (2) to prevent
any areas from slipping into Taliban conditions as havens and recruitment
centers for terrorists; (3) to keep Shiite government from turning into a
theocracy, Iranian or indigenous; (4) to leave scope for regional autonomy
within the Iraqi democratic process."
What Kissinger, Shultz and company are clearly advocating, and what the Bush
administration is acting on, is that Washington must prevent the "Shia" majority
-- meaning any Iraqi majority hostile to Washington -- from ruling Iraq. It must
remain in control of the land, by playing on the rivalries between Shia and
Sunnis as well as between Arabs and Kurds, according to the famous imperial
motto of "divide and rule."
The stakes here are all the more crucial for US imperialist interests, in that:
1) A full political defeat in Iraq -- i.e. losing control over the country and
being compelled to leave it -- will have worse consequences than Vietnam with
regard to US imperial credibility, its ability to intervene militarily, as well
as US economic and political world hegemony. Due to the oil factor, the
strategic importance of Iraq and the Arab-Persian Gulf area is far higher than
whatever was at stake in Vietnam and the whole of Indochina.
2) Iraq is part of a regional, mainly Shia, "crescent of crisis" in Washington's
-- and Israel's -- strategic view, which stretches from Lebanon, where it is
represented by the Hizbullah in alliance with Syrian hegemony, to the Alawite-dominated
regime in Syria (the Alawites are an offspring of Shiism), to pro-Iranian Shia
forces in Iraq, to the mullahs' regime in Tehran.
Washington has set itself as a priority the subversion of this reshaped and
refocused version of the "axis of evil." Its attitude to the events in Lebanon,
as well as its increasing threats against Damascus and Tehran, indicate the
context in which it envisages its role in Iraq. In light of all that, there
should be no illusion whatsoever about the present US administration's
willingness to get out of Iraq. British military sources' affirmation in late
January that Washington and London were devising "an exit strategy, but without
a public timetable" are pure disinformation meant at appeasing a public opinion
increasingly opposed to prolonging the occupation.
THE NEXT IRAQI GOVERNMENT AND THE OCCUPATION
The discussion in Iraq among political forces of the popular majority is between
those calling for a withdrawal of foreign troops in the medium-term and those
calling for their withdrawal in the short-term. It is clear that the dominant
fractions in the UIA, probably backed on this issue too by Ayatollah al-Sistani,
belong to the first camp. They believe -- no doubt, genuinely for most of them
-- that they could take advantage of the continued presence of occupation forces
in order to build-up armed forces under their own control and thus create
conditions for a smooth withdrawal of foreign troops. This view has been
expressed by the UIA's candidate for the key post of prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
It is a deadly wrong view. On the one hand, experience has shown in an
indisputable way that the longer the occupation lingers, the more the situation
in Iraq deteriorates. The occupation breeds chaos more effectively than any
other factor or force, be it foreign or local. The reason for that is quite
simple: the occupation is deeply hated by the great majority of Arab Iraqis, a
hatred that is aggravated day after day by the clumsiness and brutality of the
occupiers. The withdrawal of the foreign troops, on the contrary, is the
prerequisite for security and order to prevail and for the effective building of
a new Iraqi state.
On the other hand, the occupiers can be legitimately suspected of fostering
forms of chaos and violence, as well as ethnic and sectarian rifts, in order to
perpetuate and legitimate the occupation. They are actually accused of behaving
in this way by the great majority of the Iraqi people. Most Iraqis believe that
Washington is deliberately sowing the seeds of civil strife between them, by
playing each community against the others. They are convinced that Washington is
purposely letting terrorist groups, like Zarqawi's and other fanatics, organize
their barbaric activities in order to discredit the legitimate resistance and to
foster forms of chaos that are used as pretexts for the indefinite prolongation
of the occupation.
This is one reason, incidentally, why the staunchest anti-occupation political
forces, i.e. the already mentioned alliance between the Sunni Association of
Muslim Scholars and Moqtada al-Sadr's Current, have repeatedly called for a
clear distinction to be drawn between the legitimate resistance against
occupation forces and what they call "terrorism," putting rightly under this
label those who resort to violence against innocent civilians, whether Iraqis or
foreigners, and of course to sectarian attacks.
Washington's Machiavellian practices have reached a new degree with the contacts
it has recently undertaken with the Baathist wing of the resistance, i.e. the
network left over by the Baathist dictatorship with huge amounts of money and
vast quantities of weapons. This section of the resistance to the US occupation
-- most loathed by the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people because it
strives not to liberate the country, but to re-establish its unbearable
tyrannical oppression -- is now negotiating some kind of deal with Washington.
This development is perfectly in line with the shift in Washington's plans in
Iraq that was illustrated by the replacement of Chalabi with Allawi. The former
set himself up as the champion of "de-Baathification" and played a key role in
Bremer's decision to dissolve the apparatuses of the Baathist dictatorship --
thus opening the way to one of two outcomes: chaos and prolonged US occupation,
or the building of a new state based on majority rule. The latter advocated,
before the invasion and after, a collaboration between Washington and major
sections of the Baathist apparatuses (on this, see my article "Bush's Cakewalk
into the Iraqi Quagmire" posted on May 5, 2004 on CounterPunch).
When Bremer got rid of Chalabi and designated Allawi as head of the puppet
regime, the latter started reintegrating former major Baathists in the new Iraqi
government and armed forces, thus infuriating the key Shia forces coalesced in
the UIA. The Shia fundamentalist forces possessing militias, i.e. the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Al-Daawa Party and al-Sadr's
Current, want to purge the new Iraqi armed forces of reintegrated high-ranking
Baathists and merge their own militias into them -- a nightmarish scenario for
Washington. It is clear that Washington will try to veto any control of these
parties on the "power ministries" and the armed forces and repressive
apparatuses.
Faced with the prospect of a clash with the Shia majority, Washington is
determined to use any means necessary to counter that threat, including an
"anti-Iranian" alliance with the Baathists. After all, had not Washington
already entered for many years an alliance with Saddam Hussein himself against
the Iranian regime?
All these developments stress one more time the necessity for the
anti-imperialist left abroad to be very discerning in its attitude to the very
complex Iraqi situation, and to avoid pitfalls such as an unqualified support to
the Iraqi resistance without the necessary distinctions, and the simplistic
belief that the only legitimate or effective form of struggle is the armed one.
The Shia-Sunni anti-occupation alliance of the Association of Muslim Scholars
and al-Sadr's Current is perfectly right in its insistence on the withdrawal of
foreign troops as the central demand and necessity in the present situation in
Iraq. They are the political mediation between the pressure of the legitimate
armed resistance to the occupation and the anti-occupation political pressure
expressed by the population and the representatives of its majority. The
combination of these two pressures is crucial for the liberation of Iraq.
This anti-occupation alliance is right on the national issue. It doesn't mean
however that they are "progressive" forces. Moqtada al-Sadr's Current in
particular is a fiercely fundamentalist tendency, deeply reactionary on many
social, cultural and gender issues. It is only a testimony to the historical
failure of the left in that part of the world -- the glaring defeat of the Iraqi
Communist Party in the elections is a clear illustration -- that religious
forces, including various brands of fundamentalists, are dominant in the
peoples' struggle against foreign and local oppression. Fortunately, the very
heterogeneity of Iraqi society imposes clear limits on any project to impose an
Islamic fundamentalist rule in the country.
THE TASK OF THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT
Notwithstanding the position that the next Iraqi government will express on the
issue of the occupation, the antiwar movement abroad must definitely increase,
more than ever, its pressure around the demand of the immediate and total
withdrawal of occupation troops from Iraq. This is actually not only in the best
interest of the Iraqi people, but even in the interest of the majority of the
new Assembly itself and its representation in government.
The fact is that this majority will be confronted sooner or later with US
pressures of all kind (on this, see the articles by Milan Rai, "How Washington
Plans To Dominate The New Iraqi National Assembly," posted on Electronic Iraq,
Feb. 16, 2005 and the one by Jaafar al-Ahmar, in Arabic, "Interior and Defense
will determine the influence of the UIA and al-Jaafari's success in resisting US
pressure," published in Al-Hayat, Feb. 24, 2005). It will have to face squarely
the fact that Washington does not want to contemplate any pre-set schedule for
the withdrawal, let alone the prospect of a total withdrawal of its troops from
Iraq. The Bush administration is building a military infrastructure for the
stationing of US troops in Iraq -- in the strategic area of the oil fields
mainly -- for an indefinite period. That the continued presence of US troops for
the last 60 years in both Germany and Japan is often given as a model by pundits
of the Bush administration is eloquent in this regard.
Therefore, the Iraqi people, and its majority representatives, stand only to
gain from the most powerful pressure exerted by the antiwar movement abroad for
the immediate, unconditional and total withdrawal of occupation troops from
Iraq. It is for this very reason that it is very important that the forthcoming
international day of mobilization against the occupation of Iraq on 19 March be
successful.
The antiwar movement should also start planning for the perspective of a
protracted struggle to end the occupation of Iraq and to prevent new military
adventures against Iran, Syria or whichever country Washington will threaten
tomorrow. This entails setting a calendar of mobilizations in order to put the
movement in the long haul perspective, instead of setting each time one single
appointment and leaving the future of the mobilizations undecided.
The global antiwar movement did it once. It can do it again: We shall overcome.
February 24, 2005
Appendix: On the January 30 election
Given the nature of the prevailing security conditions in Iraq, and the
non-participation of important areas of the country, the turnout of close to 60%
of eligible voters was truly extraordinary! Since the food-rationing lists were
used as lists of voters, one can assume that the given number of eligible voters
was equal to the potential one, if not in excess (much more in any case than the
number of registered voters which is used as a criterion in most elections).
Such a participation rate of 60% -- in a country where, due to the imposed
curfew, voters had often to walk very long distances to get to the polling
stations, and where several terrorist groups had threatened to kill would-be
voters through snipers, car-bombs or suicide-attacks, and to murder anyone seen
with a purple finger -- was a remarkable achievement. It was a powerful
testimony to the thirst for democracy of a people that has been subjected for
several decades to one of the most brutal regimes in the world, and in
particular, among the most oppressed sections of this people, which formed
between them the overwhelming majority.
Beginning the day after the Iraqi elections, there has been an incredibly wide
use of the same single article in the New York Times on the 1967 election in
South Vietnam (Peter Grose, "U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote: Officials Cite 83%
Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror," September 4, 1967). Countless commentaries
have quoted this same article, which started: "United States officials were
surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's
presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the
voting."
This analogy is completely false and misleading. To measure the huge difference
between the two situations, searchers of the NYT archive could have read, for
instance, the article titled "Senators Deplore 'Fraud' In Vote Drive in
Vietnam," by Hedrick Smith in the New York Times dated August 12, 1967 -- three
weeks before the election and Grose's article.
It began: "A dozen Senators from both
US ruling parties charged today that the South Vietnamese Presidential
election campaign was being turned into a 'fraud,' 'farce' and 'charade' by the
ruling military junta."
And right these Senators were! It is possible to prove indisputably, from now
available sources like CIA documents, that the 1967 Vietnamese elections were
rigged, imposed by Washington on reluctant US stooges, Thieu and Ky, and
designed to give a veneer of legitimacy to their dictatorial puppet regime hated
by the great majority of the Vietnamese people.
To draw an analogy with the Iraqi elections imposed on Washington by the Iraqi
masses, where the chief US stooge was defeated and which were won by a slate led
by the best friends of Washington's worst enemy in the region, defies elementary
logic.
Does one also need to mention the huge difference between the Vietnamese
resistance and those forces that tried to prevent the elections in Iraq by an
unprecedented terrorist campaign directed against the voters themselves?
Gilbert Achcar is the author of The Clash of Barbarisms and Eastern
Cauldron, both published by Monthly Review Press in New York. Thanks to David
Finkel for his kind editing.
February 2005
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