[Marxism] A Baathist-Bushist conspiracy?

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

In a February 25, 2005 Znet article titled "Whither Iraq," Gilbert Achcar
argues:

Washington's Machiavellian practices have reached a new degree with the
contacts it has recently undertaken with the Baathist wing of the
resistance, i.e. the network left over by the Baathist dictatorship with
huge amounts of money and vast quantities of weapons. This section of the
resistance to the US occupation -- most loathed by the overwhelming
majority of the Iraqi people because it strives not to liberate the
country, but to re-establish its unbearable tyrannical oppression -- is now
negotiating some kind of deal with Washington.

This development is perfectly in line with the shift in Washington's plans
in Iraq that was illustrated by the replacement of Chalabi with Allawi. The
former set himself up as the champion of "de-Baathification" and played a
key role in Bremer's decision to dissolve the apparatuses of the Baathist
dictatorship -- thus opening the way to one of two outcomes: chaos and
prolonged US occupation, or the building of a new state based on majority
rule. The latter advocated, before the invasion and after, a collaboration
between Washington and major sections of the Baathist apparatuses (on this,
see my article "Bush's Cakewalk into the Iraqi Quagmire" posted on May 5,
2004 on CounterPunch).

When Bremer got rid of Chalabi and designated Allawi as head of the puppet
regime, the latter started reintegrating former major Baathists in the new
Iraqi government and armed forces, thus infuriating the key Shia forces
coalesced in the UIA. The Shia fundamentalist forces possessing militias,
i.e. the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Al-Daawa
Party and al-Sadr's Current, want to purge the new Iraqi armed forces of
reintegrated high-ranking Baathists and merge their own militias into them
-- a nightmarish scenario for Washington. It is clear that Washington will
try to veto any control of these parties on the "power ministries" and the
armed forces and repressive apparatuses.

Faced with the prospect of a clash with the Shia majority, Washington is
determined to use any means necessary to counter that threat, including an
"anti-Iranian" alliance with the Baathists. After all, had not Washington
already entered for many years an alliance with Saddam Hussein himself
against the Iranian regime?

All these developments stress one more time the necessity for the
anti-imperialist left abroad to be very discerning in its attitude to the
very complex Iraqi situation, and to avoid pitfalls such as an unqualified
support to the Iraqi resistance without the necessary distinctions, and the
simplistic belief that the only legitimate or effective form of struggle is
the armed one.

full: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=7308

===

Since Achcar does not bother to cite any newspaper or magazine article to
back up his claim that the US is trying to cement an anti-Shia alliance
with former Baathists, we have to assume that he is referring to the either
the Time Magazine article titled "Talking with the Enemy: Inside the secret
dialogue between the U.S. and insurgents in Iraq--and what the rebels say
they want"
(<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1029862-1,00.html>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1029862-1,00.html)
or Patrick Cockburn's 2/22 Independent article that makes identical points.
Both Cockburn and Time Magazine describe the Sunni-led resistance as
evolving toward a Sinn Fein-type "fight and talk" strategy. Time Magazine
reports:

>>Although they have no immediate plans to halt attacks on U.S. troops,
they say their aim is to establish a political identity that can represent
disenfranchised Sunnis and eventually negotiate an end to the U.S.
military's offensive in the Sunni triangle. Their model is Sinn Fein, the
political wing of the Irish Republican Army, which ultimately earned the
I.R.A. a role in the Northern Ireland peace process. "That's what we're
working for, to have a political face appear from the battlefield, to unify
the groups, to resist the aggressor and put our views to the people," says
a battle commander in the upper tiers of the insurgency who asked to be
identified by his nom de guerre, Abu Marwan. Another negotiator, called Abu
Mohammed, told TIME, "Despite what has happened, the possibility for
negotiation is still open."<<

How this gets turned into some kind of back-channel deal to catapult the
Iraqi resistance into power over the heads of the Shia is simply beyond me.
Yesterday the insurgency killed 5 G.I.'s. The notion that people like
Donald Rumsfeld are secretly plotting to put them into power in order to
thwart Iran's ambitions is the sort of conjecture one finds on Jared
Israel's website, not from a respected although self-important Marxist scholar.


Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org


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