May 25, 2007
Still heading for the exit in Iraq
The decision by Congress to authorise extra funding for the Iraq war - without setting a deadline for withdrawal - is being portrayed in some places as a capitulation by the anti-war crowd. Not at all. It simply means that the crucial political struggle over withdrawal from Iraq has been delayed a few months.
The real battle is going to take place in September. At that point, all of the American troops set aside for "the surge" will have been in Iraq for several months. In September General David Petraeus, on whom so many American hopes are hanging, is also due to give a crucial "status report" to Congress. If the news looks bad, then Congressional moves to get the troops out will begin in earnest. The Iraqi insurgents will doubtless factor this into their calculations. President Bush is already predicting a bloody August.
Earlier this week I met a couple of senior Republican politicians. One of them was still strongly pro-war and convinced that progress is being made; the other was wavering. But both were worried that Congress is still liable to pull the plug on the war effort prematurely. And both see September as the crunch month.
By then, the presidential election campaign will also be in full swing. With the Iraq war more unpopular than ever, the campaign is only likely to increase the pressure to get out of Iraq. It was notable that in yesterday’s vote, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama voted against authorising new spending for the war. They know which way the wind is blowing.
And on the subject of Hillary, here is an article about two intriguing-sounding new books about the Democratic Party frontrunner.
Europhobia, Islamophobia, and American Muslims Surveyed
The Atlantic Review has a new post on Eurabia alerting us to the fact that the American Freedom Alliance and Council for Democracy Tolerance is hosting a conference on the topic at Californias Pepperdine University. All the usual suspect…
Posted by: WSI Brussels Blog | May 27th, 2007 at 12:55 pm | Report this commentFrom the Brookings reports on attacks, there has been a fall escalation in 2003,2004,2005 and 2006. So any escalation is probably just a combination of the surge and the normal cycle.
In addition, it’s pretty freakin’ ridiculous to assume that the ‘guerrilla leaders’, a set which would immediately kill each other if ever in the same room together, are coordinating their attacks to fit the US political schedule.
If they had that sort of power, control and both the strategic and tactical initiative, then the war is thoroughly lost.
Posted by: Barry | May 27th, 2007 at 4:30 pm | Report this commentThe Democrats say that they want to leave Iraq but not until a peace conference with all involved parties (including the Iranians and Syrians) would create more stability for Iraq; all the while the Democrats are no less clear on their insistence that Iran should not ever acquire nuclear weapons and that Syria should cooperate in the Hariri trial and should stop messing with Lebanon. So any peace conference on Iraq under Democratic leadership would fail to bring about anything close to the kind of conditions required for an orderly retreat leaving peace in its wake. The world economy can’t chance a widening war in the region that could cause the flow of oil to be disrupted. So the US will have to stay in Iraq.
Hence, the Democratic position is merely a populist ploy to cash in on voter dissatisfaction with a situation that the Democrats will not be able to run away from either. Whomever inherits the White House isn’t going to be able to retreat; Nixon also promised to withdraw from Vietnam but since he didn’t have a plan it took another 5 years and unlike in the present Nixon actually did have a viable negotiating partner. No matter how much we all want one there isn’t an exit from Iraq yet.
Posted by: Felix Drost, Amsterdam NL | May 28th, 2007 at 12:12 am | Report this commentThs US will have to leave Iraq sooner rather than later, and one of the reasons is that a volunteer army is the one having to do the dirty job…not to mention that any conscript army would include a better schooled / richer part of the population that would / will not bite the reasons given for the war.
Moreover the longer they stay the more young muslims are recruted for Jihadism on the anti-american propaganda that became Iraq.
The point now is not anymore if the US will leave Iraq or not but when they will leave and how to limit the spread of the enormous damages they have already created.
For sure several questions remain open and depend on some water to come under the bridge: should Mr. Bush or Israel atack Iran in another preemptive risky act to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities?
Sunnis and Shiites are now just measuring each other to check up to how far they will go on with their centuries-old rivalries: will the radicals win and destabilise Saudi Arabia as well or the moderates will act pragmatically and keep the civil war limited to Iraq?
Will Turkey act pre-emptively and invade Iraq in search for their Kurd foes?
Or can the US be humble enough to make a deal with Europe to accept a Turkey European membership time table in exchange for a non invasion of Iraq?
The world, since Mr. Bush took office, has suffered enormously from the absolute absence of wise leaders. With all the due respect testosterone has taken the place of grey cells. Let us hope that the new American president will bring a bit of order and simple common sence to the circus.
Posted by: Joao Garcia | May 28th, 2007 at 10:05 pm | Report this commentAmericans will never leave Iraq volunteerly, only by force if the costs of occupying a nation like Iraq exceed the profits of doing so.
Here in Europe the majority of the people, like me, support the effort, the incredible effort, that the Iraqi Resistance is doing facing the biggest and most technologically advanced Army of the World, the U.S. Army, which is not alone but fights with about 100.000 mercenaries, about 100.000 soldiers from servant Governments (like the UK and Poland) and over 140.000 soldiers from the Puppet Government.
Since WWII we have not seen a nation (by then it was the UK) fighting alone. From the deep of my heart i congratulate the Iraqi Resistance in their fight for Freedom.
Posted by: Enrique | May 29th, 2007 at 2:31 am | Report this commentDear Mr Rachman,
I think it would be really interesting for us all if you could start a blog on US presidential candidates. Also it would be great if people who make a comment tell us where they are from. US presidential elections are done by Americans but almost all people around the World will be affected by it.
Posted by: Chen | May 29th, 2007 at 2:44 pm | Report this commentHey Democrats thank you for your mealy-mouthed spinelessness. Please let America stay in Iraq. It would keep them busy there, unable to cause mischief elsewhere.
Sad for the Iraqis but they are doomed anyway: I was talking to an elderly professor yesterday who has devoted his entire career, since 1959, to cancer research. He was adamant that the use of depleted uranium has introduced permanent and strong carcinogenic substances into the atmosphere, land and water there. Permanent, you hear? That is FOR EVER.
Let’s say Iraq is a detention room for bad, mad, dangerous Uncle Sam and will keep him away from my backyard. Washington’s blood-thirsty can continue to sate their taste for blood over there and the military-industrial complex can keep relieving the Americans from tax dollars by spending trillions on ever more sophisticated mass-murder weapons.
All this will detract from their ability to practise their murderous ways in other bits of the Third World.
Keep ‘em, busy ‘em away from me.
Posted by: Pacifist | May 30th, 2007 at 11:51 am | Report this commentI drink to that
P
@ Enrique:
“From the deeep of my heart…” Give me a break and save the drama for your telenovelas!
I find it interesting that you bring up “since WWII we have not seen a nation fighting alone…”
Check your history book, but it was the USA who came and rescued Europe from the terrible mess they had created by placating a sadistic psychotic leader!
Yes, the US has made numerous mistakes in the military operations in Iraq. But it is too easy for cowards (like you) to sit on the sidelines and make disparaging comments.
Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Posted by: Giacopo | June 1st, 2007 at 6:06 pm | Report this commentIn WWIi we know a country invaded another with the same population as Irak. By then it was Germany the one who invaded and now is the USA. The only diffeernce i find is that at least the Western part of Poland (Danzig, Silesia) had an important ethnic presence of Germans and, in fact, part of it was Germany´s territory 20 years before.
The Iraqi Resistence is fighting for Sovereignty against the Colonial occupation by the USA.
Any respected people in Europe and the rest of the World should support their fight for Freedom until the last American Occupation soldier has left the country they have destroyed.
Posted by: Enrique | June 1st, 2007 at 9:22 pm | Report this commentEnrique your “resistance” is too busy drilling holes in living people’s skulls and too busy infiltrating army and police so they can liquidate thousands of civilians of the other creed to actually “fight for Freedom”. All they really do is try to avoid fighting Americans while they engage in wide scale murder and terror.
There is no majority in Europe that supports such terrorists in their brutal and abysmally cruel civil war. If you do support them then you have blinded yourself to their methods or worse, you condone them.
“Americans will .. leave [when] … the costs of occupying a nation like Iraq exceed the profits of doing so.” If you had taken the trouble of investigating (googling) you would have found that the Iraqi operation is far more expensive than any profits from oil export ($26 billion in 2005), profits that do not flow back to the US but become part of the Iraqi government’s budget. The Iraqi war has cost the American taxpayer around 500 billion US$ so far and has netted them nothing. Now that you are aware of the figures (which you could have googled for yourself before you shared your ignorance) you should by the tenets of logic have to let go of the notion that the occupation has a profit motive.
Posted by: Felix Drost, Amsterdam NL | June 2nd, 2007 at 7:08 pm | Report this commentWhen three British agents were caught last year with their car full of explosives next to a Shia Concentration and after murdering a policemen, it was obvious sometimes they had to act alone…but usually they use others (ex. saudies) to create the chaos and genocide necessaries to justify the occupation of the nation with the second largest oil reserves in the World.
The Iraqi Resistance only attack American Troops, of which close to 3.500 have been killed and 25.000 have been injured, while the U.S. troops are always ready to rape and kill any Iraqi family who doesn´t share their will for robbery.
Just the destruction of Iraq´s great archeological heritage is enough to condemn the American invasion, but the genocide they have promoted to present themselves as savours is terrible and criminal.
But or an Army like the USA Army used to murder 200.000 innocent civilians with two nuclear bombs, promoting the genocide in other nation is just things as usual. There are 170.000 US troops right now in Iraq, plus thousands of mercenaries and Sepoy troops from the puppet government and other nations, so i don´t have any doubt the killings in Iraq have only ONE responsible and it is the US ARMY.
I congratulate the Iraqi People because they keep their fight for Sovereignty and Freedom against the Colonial forces.
Posted by: Enrique | June 2nd, 2007 at 8:42 pm | Report this commentfyi:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/02/AR2007060201020.html?hpid=topnews
They might be eagerly heading for the exit without getting there anytime soon.
Posted by: Felix Drost, Amsterdam NL | June 4th, 2007 at 12:26 am | Report this commentHey Felix,
I guess you are complicit in your own brainwashing by uncritically reading and profusely quoting from US sources which are primed to prepare the Western nations (particulaly the Americans) for another disastrous war, this time on Iran.
I recommend you read this post from professor Juan Cole’s blog:
http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/gore-on-bush-propaganda-us-bombs-shiite.html
Quote
Polling shows that the percentage of Americans who view Iran as the number one threat to the United States has risen to 27 percent now. I think it was only 20 percent in December 2006. First of all, how in the world can a developing country with about a fourth of the population of the US, about a $2000 per capita income (in real terms, not local purchasing power), with no intercontinental ballistic missiles, with no weapons of mass destruction (and no proof positive it is trying to get them), with a small army and a small military budget– how is such a country a “threat” to the United States of America? Iranian leaders don’t like the US, and they talk dirty about the US, and they do attempt to thwart US interests. The same is true of Venezuela under Chavez. But Tehran is a minor player on the world stage, and trying to build it up to replace the Soviet Union is just the worst sort of fear-mongering, and it is being done on behalf of the US military industrial complex, which wants to do to Iran what it did to Iraq. It is propaganda, and significant numbers of Americans (a 7 percent increase would be like 21 million people!) are buying it.
Why have those poll numbers gone up? Because the Bush administration is trying to hang the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq on Iran (and even trying to hang the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan on Iran). The message of administration and military spokesmen is that Iran is deliberately killing US troops and is a major source of insurgency in Iraq. No convincing evidence has ever been presented for either allegation, nor is it reasonable to assume that Iran plays a significant role in funding hyper-Sunni, Shiite-killing death squads to deliberately destabilize its client governments in Baghdad (al-Maliki) and Kabul (Karzai). Yet the New York Times and even the Guardian put this b.s. on the front page, and of course it is all over CNN, Fox Cable News, MSNBC, etc.
Unquote
Not that reducing your prejudice is easy. It is like taking a bucket of water from the ocean
Posted by: Pacifist | June 4th, 2007 at 4:00 pm | Report this commentP
Posted by: Anonymous | June 4th, 2007 at 4:01 pm | Report this comment
Pacifist, you sometimes so bluntly refer to me as having been brainwashed. I would appreciate it if you simply tried to argue on substance and leave my clean brain out of it.
You don’t have to turn to anyone but the Iranian leadership itself to understand what they purport to do; only yesterday President Ahmadinejad again threatened Israel. Even if someone claims he is being misunderstood don’t you think that by now he intends to be understood in this fashion? Even the Spanish gov’t (not Israel’s greatest friend) vehemently protested. The evidence that they are arming Hezbollah and other terrorist groups battling the US and Israel is overwhelming and the subject of unanimous UNSC resolutions.
The Intl community doesn’t have a problem with Iran acquiring nuclear technology, the fear is that Iran is developing nukes. Do realize that this fear is shared by all members of the UNSC including Russia and China; do you think they are susceptible to US pressure on this? If Putin only becomes more popular at home when he thwarts US aspirations why would he have voted with the US against Iran? Because, against populism, he shares our concern. Yes Iran is a poor nation because the government abuses Islam for political purposes (Ayatollah Montazeri himself said that) and abuses the nation’s oil wealth likewise. Ask the inhabitants of Bam if they think oil revenue should be spent arming groups in Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza and I bet they’d rather have it spent on the reconstruction of their devastated town. Or a hospital. Or a school, or a football stadium, or irrigation or some trees along the road.
The Iranians are killing Iraqis and US soldiers with their improved IEDs, with their 240mm rockets, with their apparent support for terror groups on both sides. The Iranians themselves said they support for organisations like Badr and the Mahdi army. Why do Shia groups backed by Iran raid Sunni areas and murder people in cold blood; what could they possibly stand to gain when Shia dominance of most of Iraq seems to be a given already?
Humanity depends too much on oil from the Persian Gulf to allow the chaos in Iraq to spread; for this reason alone the US cannot leave Iraq. Northern economies and societies require energy to the degree that they cannot sustain a conflict that would block oil export from the Gulf for long, the Iranians must see that it’s a survival issue. The Iranians don’t need intercontinental ballistic missiles or even a real nuclear bomb to be a threat, all they need to do is stop the flow of oil.
Posted by: Felix Drost, Amsterdam NL | June 4th, 2007 at 9:04 pm | Report this comment“FIXING IRAQ REQUIRES USA ‘SHARING’ LEADERSHIP”
The disastrous ‘occupation of Iraq’ needs to be ‘done right’- not irresponsibly abandoned.
After WW II, the Allied occupation of defeated Germany & Japan lasted much longer than Iraq’s occupation has so far.
The main differences between, for example, Japan’s 1945-‘52 occupation & Iraq 2003-‘07 is that the occupiers of Japan went in knowing they needed to establish a functional democratic governance model, & they believed that establishing democracy… involved facilitating positive change IN ALL AREAS OF JAPANESE LIFE + were prepared to provide for many years- the huge levels of resources required for this:
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/eacp/japanworks/japan/japanworkbook/modernhist/occupation.html
In Iraq, unfortunately, it appears that occupation decision-makers believed- or hoped- that a human-rights-based democratic-governance-model would just fall into place on its own… without realistic levels of resources- or detailed planning- provided by the occupiers & without years of occupier-enforced positive changes in all areas of Iraqi life.
Worse, there was no overt recognition that successful democratization would necessitate a prolonged, extensive troop presence.
Why prolonged & extensive? Because setting loose the freedoms of any people- inclined to democracy or not- who have for decades been subjugated to the whims & abuses of a barbaric dictator & his accomplices can only result in an unprincipled, often greedy grab for power by some of those previously subjugated.
To avoid this & the chaos resulting, the INSTITUTION OF A TEMPORARY NATIONAL CONSTITUTION with a boilerplate set of secular laws; articulated human-rights; & national-cohesion-mandating clauses was necessary + needed to be held-in-place (for years) while Iraqi society became acclimatized to their new democratic environment & the country as a whole developed “democratic inertia”.
Part of the reason this didn’t occur is that it would have mandated adequate (ie massive) levels of troops/reconstruction experts-> numbers large enough to maintain peace while facilitating the establishment of new, fully-enfranchised civic, provincial & national governments & their infrastructures; as well as conducting a national census & setting up functional delivery structures for vital social services basics such as health, education, sewers, electricity & water delivery.
The troop numbers needed for the above are far higher than what the USA, United Kingdom & allies could comfortably commit to- after the refusal of major military powers such as France, Russia & Germany to take part.
Now, in 2007, the melt-down of an inadequately resourced, insufficiently planned occupation of Iraq is in full swing- with far reaching egregious results… potentially effecting not only the innocent citizenry of Iraq & countries of its region, but also- disastrously- the wider world.
What is needed?? An acknowledgment by the developed world, esp G8 nations & Nato, that:
- the unconscionable problems in Iraq are of direct concern to all & are of such a serious nature that coordinated, expensive intervention is warranted;
- ‘fixing Iraq’ requires fixing Iraq’s region’s most destructive & urgent problems- no matter what the cost in ego’s or $$;
- immediate, open-minded steps must be taken to bring countries neighboring Iraq into strategic cooperation with its present/future occupiers.
To achieve strategic cooperation, the occupiers’ ‘deputizing’ Iran &/or Syria is unrealistic & likely unworkable. But, neutralizing these pivotal, influential countries’ decades-old enmity & hostility towards the USA/allies is, besides being long overdue, vital.
How? Led by the United Kingdom, & the USA, + perhaps Japan/China, the developed world ought to (among other steps):
- offer Iran the 2012 Olympics, with guaranties of significant logistical & financial support. Other states in the region could participate, with a regional Olympic games an objective;
- offer both Iran (& N Korea) the rights to be exclusive locations for the International Thermonuclear Energy Research project (ITER,
http://www.iter.org , …in planning stages, recently awarded to Cadarache, France).
Doing this would in effect call-their-bluff about needing secretive nuclear technology development programmes. The ITER project is ‘international’ by its design & nature, thereby enabling competent oversight-> precluding misuse of the project’s resources.
- Additionally, offer to pay for & partner-in-the-building-of significant infrastructure for (N Korea, & possibly) Iran, of a type that will instill national-prestige, as well as facilitating an improved connectedness- both physical & psychological- to the outside world.
Japan’s new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, advocates more assertiveness & a greater global role for his country.
These objectives could be amply accomplished, productively, by Japan supporting strategies like ITER & the 2012 Olympics, & participating in the paying for & construction of a Japanese-type high-speed “bullet” train to connect the 2 Koreas’ to each other & to south China.
A Pan-Korean peninsula high-speed rail link could only contribute to, & make more permanent the existent but very limited, trade & industry connections between the troubled North & prosperous South.
If accepted, overtures such as the ITER project, 2012 Olympics & infrastructure would enable global stages where these 2 egotistically defensive country’s (I+ many Muslim nation’s) could feel that they can show their positive potential & achievements & as well- meeting the developed world’s political objectives- would effectively require these countries to “fit”, & “work with”, the world community.
Offering the ITER project & the 2012 Olympics + committing to pay-for & partner in building infrastructure would go a long way to eliminating Iraq’s neighboring countries’ (+ other Muslim nations/people’s) & North Korea’s perceptions of threat-> removing motivations for nuclear weapons & long-range missile programmes-> &/or counter-productively interfering in Iraq.
Parts of the middle east have been a “level-ten” pressing problem for most of the last 4 decades, while effectively, the developed word- in terms of decisive actions- has done nothing to deal with them…
Iraq’s execrable & worsening situation calls for objective, ego-less international deliberation, & actions….
Without such, the world-region with the highest latent capacity to inflict catastrophic damages to international economies & to
world-stability-> will be being implicitly invited to continue its slide into a region of ticking nuclear time-bombs-> with more than bruised politicians’ ego’s the result…
Roderick V. Louis,
Posted by: Roderick V. Louis | June 5th, 2007 at 3:03 am | Report this comment(near) Vancouver, Canada,
ceo@patientempowermentsociety.com
Felix,
You inform us that humanity depends on the oil from Persian oil but ignore the fact that Iran and other oil producers depend on that self-same oil flow to earn a living and attempting to cut it off would not be so much cuting off their nose to spite their face but to slash their wrists and stab themselves in the heart too.
Further up, you simply repeat the allegations from the Washington Post article you had already posted completely ignoring the discredited provenance of such allegations (warmongering Pentagon) or the views exporessed by professor Cole.
Again, Iran has no interest whatsoever in undermining the Iraqi government which is Shia-dominated. The Jihadis are mainly from the US-friendly Saudi-Egypt-Pakistani origin who want to re-impose the 15% domination of Sunnis over the 2/3rds of the population who are Shia. It suits the USraelis to foment chaos in Iraq to dominate it and it suits theit Saudi-Jordanian-Egyptian satraps to go along with this and avoid a Shia government in a Shia nation.
Similar considerations apply to Afghanistan. It is beyond belief that Iran should be helping the Taliban who murdered Iranian diplomats and threatened war against Iran.
It is all part of the anti-Iranian propaganda that even the Afghan government disagrees with:
Karzai said Afghanistan’s relationship with Iran had never been better.
“We don’t have any such evidence so far of the involvement of the Iranian government in supplying the Taliban,” he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070604/pl_afp/afghanistanunrestus_070604132111
Brianwashed is as brainwashed does.
P
Posted by: Pacifist | June 5th, 2007 at 1:55 pm | Report this commentPacifist, the Iranian regime itself has no qualms about admitting its involved in Iraq (training and arming Badrist, SCIRI and even Sadrists), the evidence that they are involved in terror against Iraqis and US forces is quite clear as well. Your only recourse is to cast doubt on the sources of this information (Pentagon, British MOD, Iraqi government, Kurdish govt, etc); you call them discredited. But that’s just a point of view which you do not defend. Considering that the average reader of the British FT will not accept your argument without you documenting that the British MOD is spreading such misinformation on this subject you will always lose that debate. What’s even worse is that you then say that your debating partner (in this case me) is brainwashed. Have you ever read George Orwell? You’d do well to read him before you ply your trade amongst those who know that a rose is a rose is a rose.
I said that the Iranian regime should spend more of its oil wealth on its own people, such as on the citizens of Bam that was devastated by an earthquake, instead of investing it in Hezbollah, Hamas and others who seek to gain politically through violence. President Ahmadinejad is not very popular in Iran because he isn’t investing in Iran, economic growth and employment could be much higher with today’s oil prices and the Iranian people know it. Instead he and Ayatollah Khamenei are spending that money on terrorism; doesn’t that betray a belligerent mindset that could threaten our energy interests? One can only hope that the Iranians can shortly elect a more representative government then your passionate defense will hopefully be a lot more convincing.
Posted by: Felix Drost, Amsterdam NL | June 6th, 2007 at 12:02 am | Report this commentFelix,
You are not inside the heads of the Iranian rulers but if you credit them with nothing more than a self-preservation instinct you will realise that they have no interest in cutting off the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf. After all oil provides some 80 percent of Iran’s hard currency income and the social contract in rentier states which are dependent on income from natural resources dictates that the government should be able to hand out cash to the masses in lieu of the freedoms denied.
As for the readers of the FT, I supect that they are, on the whole, a savvy lot and they will judge the British MOD and the Pentagon in the light of the claims made about Iraq’s WMD’s. Do the words dodgy dossier mean much to you? They certainly resonate with the average Brit:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=dodgy+dossier&btnG=Google+Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK%7CcountryGB
The claims being made against Iran are essentially the same tissue of fabrications and lies that were used to start an unnecessary, illegal, immoral and ultimately tragic war in Iraq being told by the very same people as before.
I’d say the FT readers are the kind who would examine mistakes and try and learn from them.
P
Posted by: Pacifist | June 6th, 2007 at 10:17 am | Report this comment