September 21, 2005
This week has
seen another major -- and malevolent -- turning point in Iraq, the
significance of which has gone unnoticed by the American press. The
incident in Basra -- 
where British forces sent tanks against the city's police to rescue two undercover British agents who had allegedly been shooting at Iraqi civilians -- has exposed the ugly reality of the situation
in the supposedly quiet and quiescent Iraqi south. Basra is of course
largely in the control of fundamentalist Shiite militias, some allied with Iran,
others fiercely loyal to young extremist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The
militias have infiltrated the region's police forces and are quickly
establishing Taliban-style rule over government and society. As Juan Cole notes,
"The entire episode reeks of 'dual sovereignty,' in which there are two
distinct sources of government authority. Social historian Charles
Tilly says that dual sovereignty signals a revolutionary situation."
Other reports underscore the alarming fact that most of Baghdad is now in the hands of insurgent factions. American forces continually stage massive military actions against "rebel" towns, dropping 500-pound bombs on residential areas,
using thousands of troops, air power, armor, etc., to "clean out an
area." And they succeed. But just as in Vietnam, as soon as the US
forces move on, the insurgents move back and take over the town again.
As one U.S. commander noted last week, "We've taken Samara four times,
and lost it again four times." There is every indication that the same
thing will happen to Fallujah, which was subjected to ungodly
destruction late last year.
The war is lost. Three years after the invasion, the occupation forces control less and less of the country all the time. The level of wanton violence --
from all sides -- keeps rising. The physical infrastructure of the
country continues to deteriorate. The social fabric is in tatters.
"Reconstruction" has degenerated into outright robbery and all-pervasive graft. A piecemeal, many-sided civil war has begun. Each day of the occupation is a fresh boon to violent Islamic extremism.
Each day of the occupation further brutalizes and decimates the
American military, sinking it deeper into the dishonor of serving a
criminal cause: the illegal, unwarranted invasion and occupation of a
sovereign country, on behalf of a radical political faction that
deliberately lied its way into war.
Yet there is not a national leader on either side of
the Atlantic -- even in the opposition parties -- who will stand up and
speak the truth about the situation. They all prattle, to one degree or
another, about "staying the course" or "getting the job done" or "doing
the job right." This is sheer lunacy -- the lunacy of the powerful and
comfortable, who never have to face the bloody, ruinous consequences of
their pious rhetoric and empty posturing.
Simon Jenkins, late of the Times and now with the Guardian, has laid out a succinct case for withdrawal from Iraq: To say we must stay in Iraq to save it from chaos is a lie.
The whole piece is well worth reading, but here are some excerpts:
Iraqis of my acquaintance are numb at the violence
unleashed by the west's failure to impose order on their country. They
are baffled at the ineptitude, the counter-productive cruelty of the
arrests, bombings and suppressions. They are past caring whether it was
better or worse under Saddam. They know only that more people a month
are being killed than at any time since the massacres of the early
1990s. If death and destruction are any guide, [the US/UK] pre-invasion
policy of containment was far more successful than occupation.
Infrastructure is not being restored.
Baghdad's water, electricity and sewers are in worse
shape than a decade ago. Huge sums - such as the alleged $1bn for
military supplies - are being stolen and stashed in Jordanian banks.
The new constitution is a dead letter except the clauses that are
blatantly sharia. These are already being enforced de facto in Shia
areas...
Signalling withdrawal would, it is said, give a green
light to the gangs and private militias, to revenge attacks, ethnic
cleansing and even partition. That threat is no longer meaningful since
these are all happening anyway. The militias have reportedly
infiltrated at least half the police and internal security forces in
each area. Barely a tenth of the army is considered loyal to the
central authority. That a Basra police station should be vulnerable to
al-Sadr irregulars is appalling.
The 150,000 foreign troops on Iraqi soil are
overwhelmingly committed to self-protection. They do not do law and
order any more. Power is finding its new locus, in the mafias,
sheikhdoms, militias and warlords that flourish amid anarchy. Where
there is no security, the gunman is always king....
America left Vietnam and Lebanon to their fate. They
survived. We left Aden and other colonies. Some, such as Malaya and
Cyprus, saw bloodshed and partition. We said rightly that this was
their business. So too is Iraq for the Iraqis. We have made enough mess
there already.
