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With the approach of elections in both the United
States and Iraq, and the threat of dwindling popularity for the British
Labour government that sent British troops to Iraq in alliance with the
badly discredited Bush administration, the tones coming from all the
accomplices in the occupation of Iraq are dulcet. Both Britain and the
U.S. are promising troop withdrawals.
The U.S. client government in Baghdad is
assuming a more nationalistic stance, resisting demands for long-term
U.S. bases in the country and making cautious requests for a timetable for
an end to the foreign military occupation of their country.
The Bush administration, its supporters, and
its would be successor, Republican presidential candidate John McCain,
have been boasting that the "surge," that is, the sending of
additional U.S. troops to Iraq, has proven successful and that we are
"now winning the war." They point to a relative decline in
U.S. and Iraqi casualties, which however remain high.
Moreover, the pro-war commentators and big
press claim that the Shiite client government of the United States has
succeeded in defeating the major anti-occupation force among the
Shiites, the movement of Muqtada al-Sadr.
However, these claims are mainly a mirage
created by various short-term political factors, of which upcoming
elections are only one. The major setback for the al-Qaeda resistance
has been a backlash of Sunni tribalists alienated by the extreme
Islamists' ruthlessness and indiscriminate killing of Shiites, as well
as attracted by U.S. subsidies.
Al-Qaeda, by its nature, will continue to
carry out terrorist actions as long as it has followers willing to
sacrifice themselves (of whom there seems to be no lack). It will not
and probably cannot negotiate. It now faces serious opposition among
the Sunnis, and its support has apparently severely ebbed. But there is
probably broad Sunni support for attacks on Kurdish nationalists in the
disputed Kirkuk area.
Most serious commentators have noted that the
Sunni so-called counter-terrorists are a basket of crabs that the U.S.
authorities are unlikely to be able to control permanently and which
are already biting the hand that feeds them.
A report in the July 30 Christian Science
Monitor noted: "In a month of patrolling Baghdad, US Army Capt.
Ryan Williams has seen the best and the worst of the Sons of Iraq
(SOI)—the community policing group instrumental in restoring calm here.
"When a child went missing, SOI members
identified and helped detain his kidnappers. But another SOI group also
reportedly took over a gas station 'for security reasons' and sold the
fuel on the black market.
"Other problems include infighting among
SOI units, with the homegrown Iraqi lawmen giving US forces bogus tips
about their rivals' supposed criminal activity. 'We learned pretty
quick that they were just trying to get us to fight their battles,'
says Captain Williams, a Newport Beach, Calif., native.
"These issues indicate that the shelf
life of SOI groups is finite. US and Iraqi officials are now figuring
out what to do next with the 103,000 SOI members in Iraq. Many
officials worry that if the SOI units are dissolved without
transitioning members into steady employment, Baghdad's security will
pay the price."
In fact, the underlying problem is that
continuing catastrophic unemployment rate, which, among other things,
is making it impossible to recycle the members of the Sunni
counterinsurgency groups. The Christian Science Monitor reported July
29: "As the Baghdad University graduating class shows, most good
jobs are found in the military, police, and intelligence forces. And
many of those jobs are only attained through family ties or payoffs,
say Iraqis interviewed.
"'Our sole goal is to get a government
job. … There aren't other ways for getting ahead,' says Asfar Jihad,
surrounded by her classmates at Baghdad University on a recent morning.
'And the only way you achieve that: pull and connection or bribes,'
adds her friend Elaf Ahmed.
"In 2006, the latest official data
available, Iraq's jobless rate was 42.7 percent, according to the
Ministry of Planning. But that figure is low, say Mr. Ani and another
Iraqi economist, Ahmed al-Wazzan. The unemployment rate doesn't count
the 'nonproductive workforce'—the tens of thousands of state employees
who receive a salary but do little or don't show up for work at
all.Unemployment rates are the highest among new graduates, say the two
economists."
The governmental institutions set up under
the sponsorship of the occupation are, by all accounts, corrupt from
top to bottom. For the moment the wheels of this corrupt machine are
being greased by higher oil production and extremely high oil prices.
But the future of oil production is as uncertain as the political
future of the country. And the oil price is a lottery.
The U.S. occupation authorities were determined
to impose an untrammeled capitalism on Iraq, but so far the salient
feature of capitalism that they have been able to introduce is mass
unemployment.
Moreover, it is not only the Iraqi
administration that is riddled with corruption. The occupation military
itself continues to be beset by multiplying scandals fostered by the
highest level of privatization of an American military effort since the
Spanish-American War in the heyday of the Age of the Robber Barons.
For example, The New York Times reported July
18: "Shoddy electrical work by private contractors on United
States military bases in Iraq is widespread and dangerous, causing more
deaths and injuries from fires and shocks than the Pentagon has
acknowledged, according to internal Army documents.
"During just one six-month period—August
2006 through January 2007—at least 283 electrical fires destroyed or
damaged American military facilities in Iraq, including the military's
largest dining hall in the country, documents obtained by The New York
Times show. Two soldiers died in an electrical fire at their base near
Tikrit in 2006, the records note, while another was injured while
jumping from a burning guard tower in May 2007."
Claims that the Baghdad government has
defeated the movement of Muqtada al-Sadr may prove ephemeral, since the
charismatic radical Shiite leader evidently decided many months ago to
stand down his armed movement in order to try to make a breakthrough in
upcoming elections. His decision could simply be a pause designed to
gain more political legitimacy before going on the attack again against
the U.S. occupiers and their allies.
The U.S. military authorities claim that the
Iranian government forces are arming and inspiring some sections of
al-Sadr's movement to fight U.S. forces. But the fact is that all the
Shiite political organizations have links to the Islamic Republic of
Iran, including the U.S. client government. For this reason, the U.S.
has been trying to juggle between the Shiite and Sunni political
leaders. But that is a very tricky game, and there is every reason to
think that at some point the U.S. is going to start dropping some of
the balls.
In all, no one should be deceived that the
U.S. bosses are any closer in Iraq to achieving their objectives than
they have been at any point in their five-year war and occupation
against the country.
The U.S. continues to get deeper and deeper
into a minefield in the Middle East, and at any time could find itself
facing bigger explosions than anything it has seen so far. The only way
to avoid this is for more and more Americans to mobilize and demand
that the U.S. end its attempt to occupy countries in the Middle East
and withdraw all its forces.
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