[Peace-discuss] Re: rumors (or, Iraq after troops out)

[C. G. Estabrook]

Mark--

The precision of the parallel (viz., between occupation by the US and by
Germany and Japan) lies not in the similarity of the countries occupied --
obviously the various countries occupied in WWII were not alike -- but in
the circumstances of the occupier: military control as a result of
aggressive war, falsely announced as defensive.  I take it you agree that
it would be ludicrous for someone to defend Japanese and German
occupations of 60 years ago by pointing to the disorder that might result
from withdrawal.  The same is true of the US now.

That said, your description of the state of Iraq ("the populace grown
accustomed to ... a torture state...," etc.) is inaccurate and tendentious
but that should perhaps be argued separately.

Your "fears for the Iraqi people" were certainly notably absent from the
US government during the dozen years it enforced murderous sanctions,
which at the height probably did account for "fifty thousand ...  
civilian deaths in ... 6 months" -- and not of hypothetical, future
civilians but real, existing (only not any more) people.  So with our
new-found American solicitude in mind, let's indeed consider what "those
folks here who argue for immediate withdrawal believe would happen" --
recognizing that such predictions can usually be right only by accident.

The first thing that would happen would probably be, finally, the
spontaneous celebration amongst Iraqis that the neocons expected to greet
the invading army.  Tens of thousands of dead Iraqis and tales (mostly in
the foreign press) of ignorant brutality by the young, untrained US troops
-- the effects can be seen in polls from Baghdad -- make it so clear that
there's a rising tide of opposition to the US -- much broader than the
armed opposition -- that even the CIA has figured it out.

The second thing that would happen would be the emergence of those
elements of civil society that the US has tried to keep down or (largely
unsuccessfully) co-opt into its puppet government, the IGC.  The US claims
that it intends to establish democracy in Iraq, but the world knows that
that's a lie because a democratic election in Iraq now would bring to
power a government that the US wouldn't like and couldn't control --
perhaps (but by no means necessarily, given that the Kurds are Sunni too)
an Iranian-style Islamic republic.

It's certainly possible that the three provinces (Baghdad, Basra, and
Mosul) that had been part of the Ottoman Empire since the 17th century
(roughly as long as, e.g., there have been British settlers in North
America), and that the British put together rather artificially as Iraq in
the 1920s, may come apart.  Or, if the consciousness of Iraq as a country
has spread as far as some commentators suggest it has, then perhaps some
federal connection of the three regions would emerge, with the generally
well-organized Kurds in the north and Shias in the south being balanced by
a government around Baghdad constructed from surviving elements of the
Ba'athist party (which began 50 years ago as a secular nationalist Arab
party) without Saddam Hussein (or just possibly with him) -- and that
would depend on how deep the antipathy to the former regime is in the
rather cosmopolitan city that has been so wracked by the Americans for
half a generation.
 
How would the surrounding states react?  Top American ally Turkey -- in
the region only Israel and Egypt receive more US money each year -- has
already suggested that it will launch a US-style "pre-emptive war" again
the Kurds in northern Iraq.  Remembering that the worst ethnic cleansing
of the 1990s (worse than former Yugoslavia) was paid for by the US and
carried out by the Turks against Kurds within their borders -- with tens
of thousands killed and thousands of villages destroyed -- the Kurds have
reason to be worried.  But Turkey, as an American client (Wolfowitz
complained that the Turkish army should have forced the Turkish government
to participate in the invasion of Iran, despite the overwhelming
opposition of the Turkish populace), would have to be restrained with the
same phone call from Washington ("No more money or materiel") that Israel
should get.

The ties between Iraqi Shias, in the south, and Iran are often mentioned,
and it is possible that there would be a move to a closer connection or
even union between the Shia regions of Iraq and Iran.  Again, it would
depend on the identifications of the inhabitants of the region, and there
are already competing Shia parties in Iraq, most of whom may prefer
independence. In any case, shouldn't we as Americans generally be
supportive when "it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the
political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume
among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the
Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them"?

Perhaps more more importantly, these countries and others as well (Russia,
France) may be more interested in commercial ties to Iraq for
reconstruction and the conduct of the oil business.  (It's obvious that
the Bush administration would not have been interested in Iraq, were it an
oil-less state in central Africa -- where, incidentally three million
people died in a civil war while the US cooked the "Iraq crisis.") The
American strategic strangle-hold on world energy supplies, based on its
control of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, would be countered by a
consortium of states interested in developing the World's second-largest
oil reserves -- and of course as the current sabotage of US-controlled
Iraqi oil show, it's hard to pump oil in guerrilla war: peace is necessary
for that.

A major result of a US withdrawal could therefore be a serious profit
downturn for some US-based multi-nationals, especially in oil and
construction (undoubtedly quickly and quietly made up for by the US
taxpayer) and some gyrations of world energy prices, as it became clear
that Iraqi oil would be in Iraqi and not US hands.  In an important recent
article, Naomi Klein has pointed out how along with the military
occupation of Iraq has occurred an even more thorough-going economic
occupation.  Proconsul Bremer is spending much of his time laboring to
turn Iraq into a neoliberal paradise, complete with flat taxes lower that
Dick Armey proposed and 100% foreign ownership of companies (by guess
who), with no let or hindrance on the expatriation of profits.

So the military withdrawal should be accompanied by a withdrawal of US
business, with the last Halliburton clerks scurrying up a ladder into
waiting Chinooks, cursing the name of Cheney...  The massive reparations
owed Iraq by the US should be administered by a third party (the EU, the
Arab League, or a committee of the UN General Assembly -- the Security
Council being far too compromised by sanctions to be acceptable) under
rules that prevent any monies going to US or UK firms.

***

That's a sketch.  One thing that becomes obvious is that a US withdrawal
would have to include its calling off its attack-dogs, Israel and Turkey.  
The US subsidizes them precisely to prevent the emergence of an
independent, co-operative, perhaps EU-style federation in the region that
would use "the world's greatest geopolitical prize," Mideast oil, for the
purposes of the people of the region and not for those of a US-controlled
world-wide economic empire.  And if that should happen, perhaps even
Israel and a sovereign Palestine -- or even a bi-national, democratic
state west of the Jordan -- would want to join such a federation.)

Regards, Carl


On Fri, 14 Nov 2003, Chas. 'Mark' Bee wrote:

> 
>     Hmm.  I'm not sure I'm detail-oriented enough to respond to this
> precise a parallel.  Judging by your question, Carl, you know a lot
> more about WWII than I do.  When they were teaching that unit in our
> little midwestern high school, they left out the populace grown
> accustomed to (mostly raised in, IIRC) a torture state, previous enemy
> neighbor nations (with real chemical weapons this time) who may be
> waiting to pounce on a power vacuum, solidly emplaced religious
> fanatics advocating violent seizure of the state as soon as the
> occupiers left, inimical incognito guerillas moving across the border,
> trillions in oil reserves, etc. etc.
> 
>     Kinda gives new meaning to the phrase "precisely parallel", eh?  
> ;)
>