[A-List] Shi'ite time bomb has a short fuse

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Shi'ite time bomb has a short fuse 
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi 

"If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself
around your own." - Ralph Waldo Emerson 

In a recent conversation, US author and linguist Noam Chomsky repeatedly
faulted the Iraq Study Group's (ISG's) report for ignoring the sovereign
rights of Iraqi people, the majority of whom favor the end of military
occupation of their country. 

"One notable feature of the report is its lack of concern for the will of
the Iraqi people. The authors surely are aware of the polls that reveal that
two-thirds of the population of Baghdad want US troops to be withdrawn
immediately, that 70% of all Iraqis want a firm 

 
 


timetable for withdrawal, most of them within a year or less, that 80%
believe that the US presence increases violence, and that almost the same
percentage believe that the US intends to keep permanent military bases."
[1] 

Chomsky's criticisms are particularly relevant in light of US President
George W Bush's much-anticipated policy speech on Iraq on Wednesday, which
was notable for the sheer absence of any major policy shift, other than an
incremental troop increase, as well as the minutest reference to Iraq's
sovereignty. 

It is worth remembering that the bipartisan ISG rejected troop increases
"because we do not believe that the needed levels are available for a
substantial deployment". This aside, the panel's claim that "no country in
the region will benefit in the long term from a chaotic Iraq" deserves a
pause, because Israel is the sole exception, benefiting from such chaos that
diverts attention from its own policies toward the Palestinians. 

Military reductionism is a poor substitute for the multi-layered
recommendations of the ISG focusing on a diplomatic offensive. War and
military solutions cannot be the extension of diplomacy by other means. A
political solution with regional dimensions is needed, which is precisely
what is missing in Bush's outlook. 

Of course, Bush's omissions are understandable within the context of a US
interventionist policy that, nearly four years later, is incapable of coming
to terms with the unwanted consequences of the post-Saddam Hussein political
process, ie, that the Iraqi government is firmly opposed to the idea of a US
troop "surge" and their "embeddedness" with the Iraqi army. 

According to John Burns of the New York Times, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
actually wants US forces out of Baghdad and moved to the city's "periphery".
And it is not just the embattled prime minister either, recalling how Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani lambasted the ISG report and its plethora of
recommendations, such as troop embeddedness and various "benchmarks" for the
Iraqi government, including a constitutional revision and
re-Ba'athification, as a violation of Iraq's sovereignty. 

Saving face, though, In Baghdad, according to Iraqi government spokesman Ali
al-Dabbagh, "President Bush informed the Iraq government in a phone call of
the new strategy before announcing it." He added that Iraq would "demand
adjusting anything unsuitable in the new US strategy". The Iraqis can
demand, but shouldn't count on much satisfaction from a superpower more used
to imposing demands. 

Unfortunately, news of the objections of Iraqi government leaders does not
seem to have reached the White House, nor the fact that per a CNN poll, some
61% of Americans are not in favor of a troop surge. Instead, Bush unveiled a
"new strategy" that is helplessly bereft of imagination and relies
one-dimensionally on coercive counterinsurgency tactics to salvage the
sinking ship of the US-British gambit in Iraq. 

The new plan is, in Bush's words, to compensate for past "mistakes", one
being that "there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have".
What about the restrictions placed by the Iraqi government? Will Bush
respect the wishes of Iraq's elected leaders or, instead, contemplate adding
the feather of a military coup, harking back to the overthrow of the
government in South Vietnam, to his hat? 

Indeed, the comparisons with Ngo Dinh Diem's fate in South Vietnam and Iraq
are becoming more pronounced. Just as Diem was pressured with conditions on
economic aid before his overthrow, Washington is now imposing "benchmarks"
on the Iraqi government, such as how to divide up the oil revenue. These
demands, irrespective of their merits, have the undesirable consequence of
perpetuating the image of Baghdad's regime as a client state pure and
simple, hardly conducive to the government's legitimacy requirements, and
quest for internal peace and stability. 

But don't expect any of the policy hawks behind Bush's make-believe "new
strategy" to bother themselves with such details, given their imperial
mindset on preventing the impression of an astounding failure. Yet few even
in Washington seriously believe that such prescriptions falling seriously
short of a "comprehensive new approach" as called for by the ISG and others
have even a moderate chance of success. This save for the Israelis and their
influence peddlers, who are quietly happy that Bush disregarded the panel's
"linkage approach" that would have put the Israeli mistreatment of
Palestinians on the United States' policy agenda. 

Not only that, instead of adopting the panel's key recommendations for a
vigorous US diplomatic initiative in the region by engaging Iran and Syria,
Bush, much to the chagrin of the panel's members, opted for the opposite
path of confrontation by accusing Tehran and Damascus of harboring
"terrorists and insurgents". He also said they were providing material
support for attacks on US troops, and promised that he would root out
Iranian and Syrian support networks and protect Iraq's borders. 

These are, indeed, tall orders for a US military stretched thin and plagued
with low morale and troop exhaustion. Senator John Warner has warned that
Bush's plan would embroil the US in a bloody civil war, thus further
complicating the US mission in Iraq, which has led to a "US-Shi'ite
alliance", per the words of Washington pundit Edward Luttwak. 

Yet a point missed by Luttwak and many other US analysts is the fragility of
this alliance and the distinct possibility that under undue pressure by a
combined force of Arab Sunnis, Israelis and US hawks, the alliance might
crumble and thus turn the majority Shi'ites in Iraq into insurgents. 

Should that happen, it is a sure bet that a great deal more troops in Iraq
would be needed to quell the Shi'ite-dominated provinces rebelling against
the Americans. This nightmare scenario is probably the leading factor
mitigating against the Diem scenario in Iraq, which in turn brings us back
to the demands of the Iraqi government, due to take full responsibility for
security matters by November. 

That plan is, however, unreachable, given the abysmal security situation,
such as the 11-hour full-scale military confrontation in central Baghdad
this week. This reflected a substantive strengthening of the insurgents, who
can now add to hit-and-run tactics disciplined attacks in "military
formations". 

Increasingly beholden to US protectorate firepower, the Iraqi government
will soon be caught between incompatible demands, of the radical Shi'ites
led by Muqtada al-Sadr calling for US withdrawal and the US push to disarm
his Mehdi Army and other militias. 

But since the Iraqi army is heavily infiltrated by Muqtada loyalists, it is
highly doubtful that the Iraqi government can appease US military advice on
the militias and, what is more, one can no longer discount the possibility
of a confrontation between the US and the Iraqi army in the near future. 

In his speech, Bush vowed to correct the past mistake of vacating
insurgent-infested neighborhoods after clearing them, claiming that the US
would now have the necessary troop levels to "hold" them. This may turn out
a hope against hope, and could translate into nothing more than than more
dead on the ground. 

According to Leon Paneta, a member of the ISG, "Not one general we spoke to
recommended the troop increase, and they all only saw temporary results from
such an increase." By replacing his recalcitrant generals who saw the
ultimate futility of bandaging a gaping wound through troop increases, Bush
has reshuffled the military and diplomatic deck by bringing on board
commanders favoring aggressive counterinsurgency tactics, such as forming a
"giant security cordon" around Baghdad. 

While Bush is adamant that "this plan can work", he has at the same time
introduced a sober realism by calling for "patience, sacrifice and resolve"
on America's part, predicting that even if the plan is successful, bloodshed
would continue and American lives would still be lost. 

The consequences of failure, he has warned, would be dire in terms of
"radical Islamists" posing even bigger threats to America's precious allies
in the oil region and to the US itself, and "Iran will be emboldened to
pursue nuclear weapons and to dominate the region". 

Thus the gist of Bush's "new strategy" is to make transparent the veiled
purpose of long-term US power in Iraq, which is to deter Iranian power,
protect America's vital interests and act as a bulwark against Islamist
radicals and terrorists, without even an indirect allusion to an exit
strategy. In historical retrospective, all this will likely remind us of is
yet another US tragedy as previously seen in Vietnam, or the French in
Algeria, tragedies inherited from the legacy of Western colonialism. 

Avoiding Iraq as the flashpoint 
One net result of the White House's new strategy may indeed turn out to be
the transformation of Iraq into a flashpoint between Iran and the US, in
light of Thursday's news of a US raid on the Iranian Consulate in the city
of Irbil, decried by Tehran as an act of provocation. 

This will further fracture the US-Shi'ite alliance in Iraq and increase the
prospect of a wider war that will not be in the interests of either Iran,
the US or any of its allies save Israel. Prudent crisis management is needed
whereby US and Iranian diplomats in Iraq meet face to face for constructive
dialogue on issues of mutual concern. Sadly, despite strong recommendations
for this course of action from the United States' European allies and even
from within the US Department of State, there is now little or no prospect
of anything but escalating crisis in the region. 

Note 
1. See Noam Chomsky's comments
<http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=18938=18938&format=0>
. 

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in
Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's
Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2,
Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear
potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's
Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1419630393/qid=1143117694/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_
1/103-7387363-3942201?s=books&v=glance&n=283155> . 

(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact
us about sales, syndication 

	
Bush faces Republican revolt over Iraq
<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IA13Ak01.html>  
Jan 13, '07 

Surging toward the holy oil grail
<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IA12Ak05.html>  
Jan 12, '07 

Opening shots in new battle for Baghdad
<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IA12Ak04.html>  
Jan 12, '07 

No-goodniks and the Palestinian shootout
<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IA09Ak03.html>  
Jan 9, '07