Ozleft's Ilusions on Iraq as Post-War Germany

["M. Junaid Alam" <junaidalam@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Ozleft spends about six paragraphs waxing in indignation of Perez, whom
he has comically labelled "the Thunderer" for purposes known only to him
and creators of the GI Joe cartoon series.

And then he arrives here:

"The situation in Iraq now has clearly something in common with the
situation in Germany after the military defeat of Hitler's regime by the
Western allies and the Soviets. The Nazi regime, which had some popular
support,like the Saddam Hussein regime, was able to mount some rear
guard Werewolf activity against the occupying powers, but that rapidly
collapsed, because, despite the fact that the Nazis had some support due
to their fairly long period in power, and that some of the old state
employees etc, military men and others, owed something to them, in the
face of the overwhelming military power of the occupiers, and the hatred
of the majority of the population towards the Nazis, the Werewolf
military activity ceased quite quickly. It's obvious that all historical
analogies like this are a bit imprecise, but I insist that the present
circumstances in Iraq bear significant resemblance to the circumstances
in Germany after the military defeat of the Hitler regime."

The comparison is wildly grotesque and completely erroneous. First, the
writer assumes that all resistance to the US is being orchestrated by
"Baathists". Is Bremer whispering sweet nothings into Ozleft's ear? The
struggle against the occupation is not composed merely of "remnants"
from the Baathist period; that claim is as idiotic and untruthful as any
 of the other lies provided by this puerile administration.

Which leads us to our next point: the main and growing force of
opposition in Iraq is jihadis, or Islamic fundamentalists, funded and
pouring in from all parts of the Muslim world. Ozleft does not even
mention this reality. For all his talk of "social reality", Ozleft has
only a couple barbers and a tiny Communist sect out in the island of New
Zealand to console him.

The truth is that the operative force in Iraq and the Muslim world over
is the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism. Unless we descend to
Hitchens-like depth, this movement cannot simply be labeled or equated
with Nazism, as "Islamofascism", and be dispensed with. That is not an
analysis of anything but an expression of idiocy. Comparing a
reactionary outgrowth of repressed and defeated European nationalism,
based on a movement that lasted ten years, to the latest convulsions
from a religion dating back to 6 AD that has found itself colonized and
crumbling since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, is totally absurd.

Iraq is not post-anything. The events there express in concentrated form
the entirety of the confrontation between neoconservative ideology and
reality, between America's yearning for permanent direct control of the
Arab world and the emerging resistance to it, and all the antagonisms
let loose by the disintegration of the USSR,, antagonisms simmering to
the surface between America/Israel and the Islamic world.

Ozleft not only claims but "insists" that the circumstances in Iraq are
a la post-war Germany. He does not see that a resistance movement which
the press and even the generals now acknowledge is increasingly more
organized and better coordinated - even after the death and capture of
90% of the Baathist command and control - does not signify the "end" of
anything. He fails to see that the Shiite game is neither cooperation
nor non-cooperation, but an intelligent wait-and-see which will have but
one conclusion in light of the prevailing total instability and the
Iranian agenda. The generals' own backhanded admissions of creating a
central theater for battle against not just Iraqi but militant
Arab/Islamic fighters across the board with their allegories of
"terrorist magnets" and "fighting them here rather than in our streets"
does not enter into Ozleft's equation.

In essence Ozleft does not see the only thing that matters: the war in
Iraq - yes, the war that Ozleft declares "over" but which the US
casualty list does not - is not about Ba'athist restoration. Saddam
Hussein is not the story; he is merely the prologue.