So Iraq calls for an American timetable for withdrawal. They essentially want us gone. American’s overwhelmingly want an end to the war in Iraq, so that means we want to leave. Why are we still there? Why are Bush and McCain REJECTING the demands of a sovereign nation’s government to tell us to get the hell out of their country?
Good Question!
Well the easy answer is exactly what you probably think it is, one word that can be read in every language: money. It’s not just oil, it’s all those no-bid Halliburton contracts, all those private security contracts, all those steel penetrating M855 bullet rounds (recently accused of being ineffective), Poorly armored HumVees, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, defective body armor, supersonic harriers, aka Joint-Strike Fighters, to fight a guerilla war / occupation, and more military gear that soaks up 50% of America’s yearly Discretionary Budget. Don’t forget as well, all the long term construction contracts that we will surely get if we maintain a longer term presence in Iraq. Plus permanent Military Bases means KBR contracts for food services, base repair and of course, all the fast-food joints, movie theatres and ice-cream parlors located for the benefit of the troops, all managed by America’s finest corporate fast-food, slow-death eateries. Only the best for our troops!
Yet there is another, underlying answer that is far more complicated. The imperial corporate conquest of Iraq means more corporate culture in Iraq, a nation soon to be flush with oil revenue. It means a strategic foothold in the region, pushing an Arabic secular example on to the Middle East, implying that we can begin remaking potentially weak governments like Syria, lean on wavering democracies like Turkey and slowly introduce to allies like Saudi Arabia. Plus it makes a great beachhead for an attack on Iran, either airstrikes or by full-blown invasion, especially since they have let Afghanistan go to hell.
Sounds like they thought all this out right? Doesn’t sound like such a bad plan, too bad it has no basis in reality!
You see, all this “success†is highly dependent on stability, as all commerce is, with the exception of war profiteering. The profits from war are peanuts compared to what can occur with having an industrialized Iraq producing Light Sweet Crude and petrochemical products. A booming economy WOULD produce a striving middle class who dump their dollars into Walmarts and McDonalds, while the lower rungs of society would be milked for their cheap labor. A little America in the middle east. Without stability, this will not happen, and an ongoing war will only drain the American treasury and place an enormous debt on the backs of future generations. Stability is the key, and Democracy at gunpoint is a lousy strategy, as evidenced by the weak and unpopular Malaki government in Baghdad, which has lost support from Sunni and Shiite alike and can barely keep its head above water.
Oh yeah and one more thing. The Bush administration seems immune, even callous from the realities of the enormous violence the Iraqi people have endured. These sorts of scars do not go away, and will cause what callous people call “blowback” or a backlash against the tremendous “gift” we have given them. That is reality. Something Conservatives seem completely out of touch with.
Stability in Iraq is not reality today. It’s just better than it was. The “Surge†is a lie. Ethnically cleansed boarder areas, US hired Sunni Warlords and Shiite militias that have melted away into cities like Basra appears to be the real reason things have improved. There were no increased deployments to the AnBar Province, where violence is down, just a new Sunni faction, unifying and mobilizing for a potential war in the future. The Shiites appear to be doing the same, as rival factions The Mehdi Army and the Badr Brigade, along with many smaller factions, prepare for imposing a non-secular religious state, fundamentalist and anti-West. There have been reports of large weapons caches discovered in Southern Shiite stronghold Basra, linked to militias, and very few militia leaders or followers have been captured at all. They just disappeared. Out of uniform and back into society. Waiting.
Electricity and flowing water are not up to pre-war standards and much of the nation’s intellectuals and professionals have fled to other Arab nations. The reality of Iraq is it’s a nation struggling with a frustrated society taken with the way of the gun, angry at a Christian occupying army which seems to be present to secure oil and create a society without Allah. It’s a society divided by religious affiliation and ethnicity, a government aligned with our enemy, Iran, and a world where survival can be a gamble.
Now that Iraq is asking us to leave, Bush and his Neo-Cons refuse to listen. They don’t want to see their $2 Trillion venture fall flat on its ass, however it has. Not only that, it’s made Iran the region’s most dominant force. Their testing of missiles and nuclear developments only prove what many like Tom Friedman have already said, that Bush traded Away American leverage in the region and made our presence, weak and not respected. It killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, 4,000+ American soldiers, and maimed, mangled and psychologically disfigured an uncountable amount of Americans and Iraqis.
In other words: it was a failure, that has achieved very little. Our only hope is to leave, and leave without appearing a failure. Everyone will know we failed, yet if we can claim any victory at all; it saves face in the world ahead. It’s a gamble on the future of Iraq. If Iraq manages to pull itself together, we can always claim it was a victory, unlike the Vietnam situation which did pull itself up against our leaving with our tail between our legs.
If Iraq wants us to leave, let’s leave, slowly on a timetable. We need to strengthen our ties to the Iraqi government, so we can return and help if need be, to support our ally.
To ignore the wishes of our occupied nation will only prove that we really ARE there for selfish reasons, and it will be clear to every Iraqi citizen. They may begin working together to force us out, which will really put us in a quagmire.
It’s time to claim victory and slowly leave. Much like the Philippine-American War, the fighting stopped when we announced that we planned to leave. The end result, after another 30+ years of occupation left a nation as stable as pre-Saddam Iraq, plagued with rapid govt. changes, uprisings, coups, civil-war and corrupt dictators. It is likely what will happen again this time.
At least we can put this miserable war behind us, and shift our attentions to rebuilding our own nation, and taking care of the Veterans that sacrificed so much for Bush’s enormous blunder.